ns 


Irene  and   Lrnest  I  i 


ace 


GEORGE'S 

Park  Street,  Bristol 


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MOATED    HOUSES 


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m 


- 


OXBOROUGH     HALL 


MOATED    HOUSES 


BY 


W.    OUTRAM    TRISTRAM 

ILLUSTRATED   BY 

HERBERT    RAILTON 


WITH   SEVENTY-SEVEN    ILLUSTRATIONS 


METHUEN    &    GO.    LTD. 

36   ESSEX   STREET    W.C, 

LONDON 


First  Published  in 


CONTENTS 


No. 

I.  DURANTS  ARBOUR 
II.  OXBURGH  HALL. 

III.  MARKENFIELD  HALL. 

IV.  BISHAM 

V.  KENTWELL  HALL 
VI.  GREAT  TANGLEY  MANOR 
VII.  MORETON  HALL 
VIII.  CROW'S  HALL     . 
IX.  PLUMPTON  PLACE 
X.  COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP 
XI.  PARHAM 
XII.  GEDDING 

XIII.  MOYN'S  PARK      . 

XIV.  HELMINGHAM  HALL  . 
XV.  BADDESLEY  CLINTON 

XVI.  STANFIELD  HALL     . 
XVII.  IGHTHAM  MOAT 
XVIII.  WOODCROFT     . 
XIX.  THE  RYE  HOUSE 


.  (MIDDLESEX) 

PAGE 
I 

.  (NORFOLK)  . 

22 

.  (YORKSHIRE) 

•      43 

.  (BUCKINGHAMSHIRE)  . 

.     62 

.  (SUFFOLK)    . 

•      75 

.  (SURREY) 

.      89 

.   (CHESHIRE)  . 

.       101 

.  (SUFFOLK)    . 

.     118 

.  (SUSSEX) 

.     128 

.  (WILTSHIRE) 

.     138 

.   (SUFFOLK)    . 

.     147 

.  (SUFFOLK)    . 

•     155 

.  (ESSEX) 

.     163 

.  (SUFFOLK)    . 

.     180 

.  (WARWICKSHIRE)  . 

•     193 

.   (NORFOLK)    . 

.     217 

.  (KENT)  .... 

•     231 

.   (NORTHAMPTONSHIRE)  . 

.     251 

.  (HERTFORDSHIRE) 

.     266 

2071887 


vi  MOATED  HOUSES 

NO.  PAGE 

XX.    BlRTSMORTON           .  .  (WORCESTERSHIRE)  .  .  284 

XXI.    COMPTON  WlNYATES  .  (WARWICKSHIRE)  .  .  .  304 

XXII.  BROUGHTON  CASTLE  .  (OXFORDSHIRE)     .  .  .  328 

XXIII.  HEVER  CASTLE      .  .  (KENT)   .   •    .       .  .  .348 

XXIV.  GROOMBRIDGE       .  .  (KENT)  .....  377 


LIST  OF  PLATES 

• 

OXBURGH  HALL         .  .  .  .  .  .  Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

DURANTS  ARBOUR    .......        i 

MARKENFIELD  HALL  .  .  . 

BISHAM  ABBEY          ....... 

KENTWELL  MANOR   ....... 

GREAT  TANGLEY  MANOR     ...... 

MORETON  HALL        ....... 

CROW'S  HALL  ....... 

PLUMPTON  PLACE     ....... 

THE  MOAT,  COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP  .... 

PARHAM  HALL          ....... 

GEDDING  HALL         ....... 

MOYN'S  COURT  ....... 

HELMINGHAM  HALL  ....... 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON  ...... 

STANFIELD  HALL      .  . 

THE  COURTYARD,  IGHTHAM  MOAT  .... 

WOODCROFT  MANOR 

THE  RYE  HOUSE      ....... 

BlRTSMORTON   COURT  ...... 

COMPTON  WINYATES  ...... 

BROUGHTON  CASTLE.  ...... 

HEVER  CASTLE          ....... 

GROOMBRIDGE  HALL 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

IN  THE  TEXT 

• 

PAGE 

DURANTS  ARBOUR,  PONDERS  END  ....        3 

DURANTS  ARBOUR— JUDGE  JEFFREYS'  HOUSE     .           .  -9 
DURANTS  ARBOUR,  PONDERS  END — JUDGE  JEFFREYS'  HOUSE       17 

OXBURGH,  TOWER  AND  ANGLE  OF  NORTH  FRONT        .  .      25 

OXBURGH,  ORIEL  WINDOW  AND  TOWER,  SOUTH  FRONT  .      31 

OXBURGH  HALL,  THE  GATEHOUSE            .           .           .  -37 

MARKENFIELD,  THE  GATEHOUSE  AND  MOAT       .           .  -45 

MARKENFIELD,  FROM  THE  BATTLEMENTS            .           .  -51 

MARKENFIELD  HALL,  FROM  SOUTH          .           .  -57 

BISHAM  ABBEY          .           .           .           .           .           .  .67 

KENTWELL  HALL,  DORMER  FROM  SOUTH  COURT          .  .      77 

KENTWELL  HALL,  MOAT  FROM  SOUTH     .           .           .  -83 

GREAT  TANGLEY  MANOR-HOUSE    .           .           .           .  .91 

MORETON  HALL,  THE  EAST  FRONT          .                      .  .     103 

MORETON  HALL,  THE  PORCH         .           .           .           .  .107 

MORETON  HALL,  THE  COURTYARD  AND  ORIELS            .  .     in 

THE  ROOFS  OF  MORETON    .           .           .           .           .  -115 

CROW'S  HALL            .           .           .           .           .           .  .121 

PLUMPTON  PLACE     ,           .           .           .           ,           ,  .     131 


x  MOATED  HOUSES 

PAGE 

COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP        .           .           .           .  .  .141 

PARHAM  HALL          .           .           .           .           .  .  -151 

GEDDING  HALL         .           .           .           .           .  .  .     159 

MOYN'S  PARK,  ORIEL  WINDOW      .           .           .  .  .165 

MOYN'S  PARK,  THE  GABLES            .  .169 

MOYN'S  PARK,  THE  GARDEN  FRONT         .           .  .  .173 

MOYN'S  PARK,  THE  SOUTH  WALK            .           .  .  .177 

HELMINGHAM  HALL  .           .           .           .  .  .185 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  THE  COURTYARD    .           .  .  .195 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  THE  BRIDGE  AND  MOAT  .  .  -199 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  GABLES  AND  MOAT           .  .  .    203 
BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  ON  THE  BRIDGE    ....    207 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  THE  TOWER  ARCH            .  .  .211 

BADDESLEY  CLINTON,  BRIDGE  SPANNING  THE  MOAT     .  .215 

STANFIELD  HALL      .           .           .           .           .  .  .221 

THE  CLOCK  GABLE,  IGHTHAM  MOAT        .           .  .  -235 

IGHTHAM  MOAT        .           ...           .  .  .    241 

IGHTHAM,  THE  COURTYARD            .           .           .  .  .247 

WOODCROFT  MANOR.           .           .           .           .  .  -259 

THE  RYE  HOUSE,  AS  IT  APPEARED  AT  TIME  OF  PLOT  .  .271 

THE  RYE  HOUSE,  THE  TWISTED  CHIMNEY         .  .  .277 

BlRTSMORTON   COURT  ......      289 

BlRTSMORTON  COURT,  THE  MOAT  FROM  SOUTH .  .  .    297 

COMPTON  WINYATES,  THE  WEST  FRONT  ....  307 
COMPTON  WINYATES,  THE  COURTYARD  ....  313 
COMPTON  WINYATES,  THE  TWISTED  CHIMNEYS  .  .  -319 

QOMPTON  WINYATES,  THE  MOAT    ,  ,  323 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT        xi 

PAGE 

BROUGHTON  CASTLE,  VIEW  FROM  N.E.    .           .  .  -337 

HEVER  CASTLE,  THE  WEST  FRONT           .           .  .  -355 

HEVER  CASTLE,  TURRET  AND  EAST  ANGLE  OF  MOAT  .  .    365 

GROOMBRIDGE  HALL,  SOUTH  ANGLE  OF  MOAT  .  .  .    383 

GROOMBRIDGE  HALL,  BRIDGE  OVER  MOAT          .  .  .    391 


MOATED     HOUSES 


DURANTS  ARBOUR 

A  FARM  for  eight  hundred  pigs  does  not  at  first 
sight  seem  a  subject  for  historical  research. 
Nor  are  piggeries  usually  associated  with 
spacious  courtyards,  massive  and  heavily  buttressed 
walls,  and  a  moat  which  can  show  in  some  places 
a  width  of  eighty  feet.  The  portent  may,  however, 
be  seen  without  travelling  ten  miles  from  Charing 
Cross  ;  and  if  Ponders  End  does  not  strike  one  as 
an  enticing  goal  for  a  Pilgrim's  Progress,  this  north- 
eastern suburb  of  London  can  supply  in  Durants 
Arbour  at  all  events  a  name  which  has  poetic 
possibilities,  and  a  building  which  gives  to  the  county 
of  Middlesex  a  singular  example  of  a  moated  house. 

The  beauties  of  perfectly  level  pastures  have 
been  noticed  by  observers,  and  painters  have  drawn 
inspiration  from  them.  The  melancholy  flats,  from 
which  Durants  Arbour  stands  up  like  a  gnarled 
monument  of  times  departed,  may  not  add  converts 
to  this  cult  of  Nature's  less  noticed  aspects,  especi- 
ally if  the  old  house  is  first  seen  at  the  close  of  a 


2  MOATED  HOUSES 

dim  October  day  to  the  accompaniment  of  cold  rain 
falling  unintermittently.  Though  it  stands  but  just 
beyond  the  limits  of  a  thickly -peopled  district, 
which  is  already  encroaching  upon  it,  and  which  will 
soon  surround  it  with  a  suburban  embrace,  the  place 
conveys  a  feeling  of  strange  loneliness.  A  nearer 
approach  across  grass  fields  being  gradually  turned 
into  slush  reveals  the  trace  of  ruins.  No  wonder 
the  visitor  is  perplexed. 

What  story  can  this  great,  old,  half-dismantled 
house  have  to  tell !  What  irony  of  fate  has  brought 
it  from  a  mansion  down  to  a  piggery  !  What  ominous 
voices  have  been  re-echoed  in  days  gone  by  from 
rafters  now  laid  bare  and  resounding  only  to  the 
chorus  of  the  stye !  A  certain  banned  look  which 
the  house  wears ;  the  porcine  purpose  to  which  it 
has  been  put ;  suggest  the  work  of  that  slow  punish- 
ment which  sometimes  overtakes  crime.  Retribution 
seems  to  have  fallen  here  upon  some  dark  secret. 
The  house  is  haunted  by  some  memory  or  presence 
strangely  wicked  or  dark ! 

Should  such  fancies  strike  other  visitors  to 
Durants  Arbour,  if  they  have  the  courage  to  go 
there  on  a  rainy  day,  and  dare  the  timed  dallyings 
of  the  Great  Eastern  Railway,  they  may  console 
themselves  with  the  reflection  that  their  fancies 
are  founded  on  fact.  Research  shows  this  house  to 
have  been  the  constant  resort  of  a  peculiarly  infamous 
person  who  has  naturally  undergone  the  process  of 
ineffectual  whitewashing,  but  who  will  always  stand 
pilloried  in  history.  And  yet  of  all  historical  villains 
of  the  deepest  dye,  this  villain  seems  the  least  likely 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  5 

to  have  been  associated  with  such   a  place  as  this. 
So  strangely   out   of  keeping   with    his   abominable 
personality  do   these   surroundings   appear,  that   his 
identity  might  be  profitably  made  the  subject  of  a 
Guessing    Competition    in    which    every   competitor 
should   have   an    unlimited    number   of    tries.     The 
chorus  in  Milton's  Samson  Agonistes  with  reference 
to  a  similar  trial  of  skill  as  the  one  suggested,  but 
offering  as   the   problem    for  solution,   "  that  quality 
in  man   can   woman's    love   win   and   long   inherit," 
encourages  competitors  by  the  remark  that  they  are 
not  likely  to  arrive  at  a  correct  solution  of  the  riddle 
if  they  sit  musing  on  the  ground  one  day,  or  even 
seven.     It  is  to  be  believed  that  a  like  latitude  for 
correct   guessing   might   be   successfully   allowed    to 
anybody  trying  to  name  the  ominous  personage  whose 
visits  to  Durants  Arbour  have  left  the  place  haunted. 
Unless  inspired  by  previous  knowledge  or  guided  by 
local  legend  no  one  would  believe  that  this  moated 
house,  with  its  story  dating  back  to  the  first  Edward  ; 
with  its  buttresses  which  have  been  buffeted  by  winds 
blown  across  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  ;  with  its  deep 
moat   strikingly    marking    those    days    of    English 
history  when  peasants    revolted,  and  Chaucer  sang, 
and  Langland  chronicled,  and  country  gentlemen  had 
to  put  ditches  of  water  round  their  houses  to  prevent 
their  throats  being  cut  at  midnight — unless  inspired 
by  previous    knowledge    or   guided    by  local  legend 
no   one    would    suspect   that    such    a    house    as   this 
Durants    Arbour,     telling    the    story    of    Mediaeval 
England  as    it  does   from    every   one    of  its  stones, 
should    have   been   the   constant  visiting-place   of  a 


6  MOATED  MOUSES 

villain    so    infamous  yet   comparatively  speaking   so 
recent  as  Judge  Jeffreys. 

The  full-bottomed  wigs  of  Charles  the  Second's 
time,  frills,  furbelows,  and  slashed  doublet,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  red  robes  of  the  Recorder  of  London, 
significantly  coloured  though  they  are,  seem  out  of 
keeping  with  this  monument  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Durants  Arbour  should  have  been  haunted  by  some 
earlier  kind  of  ghost,  by  some  mediaeval  atrocity  in  the 
form  of  a  man,  mail-clad  for  choice.  The  cruel  Judge 
of  the  Restoration,  with  his  handsome  Spanish  face, 
and  fine  sleepy  eyes  half  closed  in  some  melancholy 
meditation  of  murder,  seems  out  of  place.  Humphrey 
de  Bohun,  who  had  a  moated  stronghold  with  some 
dungeons  underneath  it  only  a  mile  or  so  from 
Durants  Arbour,  is  more  the  sort  of  person,  as  an 
abiding  memory,  to  have  suited  the  place.  And  his 
heart  could  not  have  been  harder.  Yet  in  spite  of 
anomalies  of  dress  and  manners,  it  is  the  memory  of 
Jeffreys  that  remains.  Durants  Arbour  is  inseparably 
coupled  with  his  name  in  every  place  within  a  mile  of 
the  house  where  a  scrap  of  legend  can  be  got  if  called 
for,  or  a  suggestion  of  rumour  obtained.  The  wicked 
Judge  is  everywhere  under  varying  titles.  Some 
call  him  Judge  Jeffreys  :  others  call  him  Sir  George : 
others  Lord  Jeffreys.  All  titles  are  correct.  They 
mark  the  different  grades  of  that  sudden  advance  in 

O 

legal    profligacy  which    brought    their  owner   to  the 
Old  Bailey,  the  Bench,  and  the  Woolsack. 

But  whether  as  Recorder,  Judge  of  the  High 
Court,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  local  rumour 
of  the  most  stubborn  type  will  connect  Jeffreys  with 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  7 

Durants,  and,  strangely  enough,  without  knowing  how 
or  why. 

Those  missing  links  in  a  house's  story  will  be 
presently  supplied.  But  not  before  its  record  has 
been  traced  through  periods  previous,  and  some 
suggestions  given  of  its  many  inhabitants,  quiet, 
home-keeping,  little-known  people,  who  were  born, 
married,  lived  and  died  at  Durants  Arbour  long  before 
Judge  Jeffreys'  roars  announced  his  arrival,  or  mellow 
tones  were  heard  after  dinner  singing  French  chansons 
a  boire.  This  is  to  go  back  to  the  days  of  the  first 
Edward,  when  the  Jews  were  being  expelled  from 
England  and  the  country  was  on  the  eve  of  that 
struggle  with  Scotland  which  led  to  the  battle  of 
Falkirk  and  the  death  of  the  heroic  Wallace.  In  the 
very  year  in  which  that  strange  people  who  now  hold 
the  scales  of  Europe  were  deprived,  so  far  as  England 
was  concerned,  of  the  privilege  of  holding  any, 
Richard  de  Hessitis,  the  then  owner  of  Durants, 
died.  His  lands  were  valued  at  sixteen  pounds 
sixteen  and  a  halfpenny,  which  does  not  to  a  modern 
view  seem  an  extraordinary  sum  for  a  landlord  to 
divide  equally  between  his  three  sisters.  However, 
the  ladies  were  all  married  at  the  time,  and  made  up 
for  the  meagreness  of  their  portions  by  the  prettiness 
of  their  names  :  at  all  events  with  the  exception  of 
Emma,  which  has  a  modern  ring.  Sabrina  and 
Aveline  make  up  for  her  deficiencies  in  this  respect, 
Sabrina  especially  so,  though  she  died  without 
children. 

Emma  was  married  to  a  John  Heyron,  a  name 
strangely  enough   carrying  a   suggestion    that    some 


8  MOATED  HOUSES 

Jews  at  all  events  had  escaped  the  general  expulsion. 
The  son  of  this  couple,  also  named  John,  came  into 
possession  of  Durants.  At  the  invitation  of  James 
Van  Artevelde,  Edward  the  Third  put  the  French  lilies 
on  his  shield  with  the  motto  Dieu  et  mon  Droit,  and 
claimed  the  French  crown  by  the  right  of  his  mother 
Isabella.  This  proceeding  marked  the  beginning  of 
the  Hundred  Years'  War,  an  insensate  proceeding  in 
which  the  contented  owners  of  Durants  Arbour  did 
not  take  part.  They  occupied  themselves  in  the 
wiser  pursuits  of  living  on  their  own  lands,  living 
quietly  and  dying  in  the  natural  course.  The  en- 
larging of  the  moat  occupied  more  of  their  attention 
than  the  deeds  of  fruitless  daring  done  in  France,  and 
while  Edward  the  Third  with  the  glories  of  Crecy 
upon  him  was  dreaming  of  fresh  territories,  they  were 
only  thinking  how  best  to  improve  their  garden. 

A  more  military  figure,  however,  invaded  the 
moated  seclusion  of  Durants  when  the  war  had  run 
twelve  years  of  its  aimless  course,  and  the  name  of 
Sir  Baldwin  de  Radyngton  suggests  feats  other  than 
horticultural.  He  may  possibly  have  laid  lance  in 
rest  by  the  side  of  the  Black  Prince.  He  came  to 
Durants  Arbour  as  the  husband  of  the  already  once 
married  Maud,  daughter  of  the  heiress  of  Thomas 
Durant,  grandson  of  the  Aveline  already  mentioned. 
He  died  of  that  scourge  which  swept  England  from 
her  northern  borders  to  the  Channel,  and  killed 
people  so  fast  that  the  great  difficulty  was  to  bury 
them.  The  extinction  of  a  third  of  the  population, 
fields  uncultivated,  farms  abandoned,  spoke  eloquently 
as  to  the  terrors  of  this  visitation  ;  the  numbers  killed 


yfbm 
IJURANTS  ARBOUR.     JUDGE  JEFFREYS'   HOUSE 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  n 

daily  in  the  French  War  ceased  to  be  counted,  and 
the  second  generation  shuddered  and  reached  out 
trembling  hands  for  their  grandfathers'  nostrums  at 
mere  mention  of  the  Black  Death.  Sir  Baldwin  de 
Radyngton  meanwhile,  having  survived  or  evaded 
the  French  War,  was  equally  successful  in  shunning 
the  pestilence. 

He  lived  quietly  on  the  acres  which  he  had  got 
by  marriage,  tilled  his  fruit  trees,  stared  at  the 
moat,  congratulated  himself  on  perils  escaped,  and 
probably  remained  quite  unconscious  that  two  poets 
had  at  last  risen  in  England.  The  Canterbury 
Tales  and  the  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman,  proclaim- 
ing the  genius  of  Chaucer  and  Langland,  were, 
it  is  likely,  unopened  books  to  the  good  Knight. 
Nor  was  he  probably  aware  that  the  Master  of  an 
Oxford  College  had  made  the  discovery  that  the 
clergy  were  sometimes  hypocritical,  and  the  tyranny 
of  the  landowners  was  worthy  of  some  such  sort  of 
scourge  as  we  now  call  Socialism.  Wickliff  would 
have  been  little  more  than  a  name  to  Sir  Baldwin ; 
but  being  a  landowner  himself,  and  likely  as  one 
bent  on  enlarging  his  estates  to  need  the  services  of 
lawyers,  he  would  have  pricked  his  ears  at  the  mention 
of  the  word  "  Praemunire,"  and  slowly  gathered  that  a 
statute  had  been  passed  ordering  that  English  should 
be  used  in  the  Law  Courts,  and  not  French. 

Having  survived  many  other  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties, Sir  Baldwin  de  Radyngton  also  survived  his 
wife.  Henry  the  Fourth  was  King,  the  revolt  of  Percy 
and  Glendower  was  in  full  progress,  and  the  shouts  of 
the  victors  and  the  groans  of  the  dying  were  going 


12  MOATED  HOUSES 

up  from  reddened  meadows  round  Shrewsbury,  when 
it  came  to  Sir  Baldwin's  turn  to  slowly  sicken  and  die. 
His  tenure  of  Durants  Arbour  had  been  a  decidedly 
long  one,  and  as  he  had  no  children  of  his  own  the 
property  passed  to  William  Wroth,  son  of  his 
deceased  wife  Maud  by  her  first  marriage. 

A  succession  practically  unbroken  for  two  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  years  testified  to  the  soundness  of 
the  Wroth  constitution,  and  to  the  healthiness  of  the 
moated  house  in  which  they  lived.  At  the  time  of  the 
late  owner's  death,  house  and  lands  surrounding  it 
were  valued  at  ten  marks  exactly.  The  tenacity  shown 
by  the  Wroth  family  in  holding  what  they  had  got,  to 
say  nothing  of  a  capacity  for  snatching  more,  is 
evidenced  by  the  first  growth  of  the  property  in 
the  space  of  a  hundred  and  sixteen  years.  When 
Wolsey's  administration  was  in  its  zenith ;  when 
Henry  the  Eighth  was  preparing  to  receive  the 
Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  at  Canterbury,  and  taking 
counsel  with  contemporary  stage  managers  on  the  ap- 
proaching glories  of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  ; 
John  Wroth,  Esquire,  lay  a-dying  at  Durants,  after 
an  inquisition  had  been  made  of  those  extended  lands, 
houses,  and  gardens,  no  longer  serviceable  to  his  future 
needs.  The  extensions  of  Durants  Arbour  evince 
themselves  as  follows: — The  Manor  itself  (the  moat 
not  forgotten) :  20  houses  :  20  Jots  :  2  Mills  :  10 
Gardens  :  300  acres  of  arable  land  :  200  acres  of 
meadow  :  40  acres  of  pasture  :  10  acres  of  wood. 

The  death  of  Sir  Henry  Wroth  in  1671  marked  the 
extinction  of  the  family  which  had  so  sedulously  built 
up  this  property.  Between  the  periods  of  1519  and 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  13 

1671  names  appear  as  owners  of  Durants  other  than 
Wroth.  But  these  seeming  interlopers  had  married 
Miss  Wroths,  all  the  same.  The  succession  was  carried 
on  by  the  female  line  through  the  spacious  days  of 
great  Elizabeth  and  the  stirring  and  coloured  times 
of  Charles  the  First.  Cecil  Lord  Burghley  was 
created  Secretary  of  State.  The  clergy  had  to  take 
the  oath  of  Supremacy.  Edward  the  Sixth's  Prayer 
Book  was  restored,  to  the  unspeakable  benefit  of 
theological  disputants  ;  the  Armada  came  and  went ; 
finally  Elizabeth  went  herself;  but  still  the  Wroth 
family  succeeded  each  other  in  a  placid  and  contented 
possession  of  Durants  Arbour. 

A  certain  William  Bower,  Esquire,  held  the  place 
by  marriage  in  the  year  of  Laud's  elevation  to  the 
Archbishopric,  and  in  the  safe  seclusion  of  his  moated 
walls  received  news  of  that  great  struggle  in  which 
the  causes  of  Charles  the  First  and  civil  and  religious 
liberty  were  put  to  the  arbitrament  of  Civil  War. 
Faithful  to  the  family  failing,  though  inspired  to  it 
only  by  marriage,  William  Bower  took  neither  side 
in  that  historic  strife ;  or  if  he  did  don  the  scarf  of 
Charles  the  First,  or  the  morion  and  orange  sash  of 
Cromwell,  retired  at  the  earliest  opportunity  from  the 
fighting  line.  He  sat  on  the  fence,  or  on  the  wall  of 
his  moat,  watching  which  way  the  cat  was  going  to 
jump,  and  early  in  the  jolly  days  of  the  Restoration 
was  gathered  to  his  fathers  without  having  definitely 
committed  himself. 

But  where  all  this  while  is  the  Evil  Genius  of 
Durants  Arbour  to  whom  reference  has  already  been 
made,  whose  haunting  impression  has  been  so  insisted 


14  MOATED  HOUSES 

on  ?  The  story  of  the  house  and  its  inmates  has  been 
traced  for  three  hundred  and  eighty  years  without 
any  mention  of  that  personage,  so  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  it  that  his  name  is  a  byword  in  the 
mouth  of  every  country  gossip.  There  is,  however, 
a  time  for  all  things.  On  the  stage  proper  as  well  as 
on  that  larger  theatre  of  the  World  where  facts  are 
dramatized  and  historians  tell  the  tale,  every  actor 
has  the  moment  appointed  for  masquerade.  The 
hour  for  the  villain's  entrance  upon  the  scene  has 
been  sounded.  Strangely  enough,  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  play  (after  passing  through  such  scenes  of 
stress  as  the  Peasants'  Revolt,  the  Wars  of  the  Roses, 
the  Black  Death,  Wickliffs  Revivalist  Movement, 
the  Statute  of  Prsemunire,  and  other  dangers  of 
medisevalism)  is  seen  moving  to  the  calm,  corrupted 
conclusion  of  the  Restoration,  the  Call  Boy  of  history 
roars  his  summons  for  the  chief  villain's  entrance. 
A  long-drawn-out  drama  of  quiet  domestic  interest 
takes  a  tragic  turn  ;  and  the  grey  walls  and  buttresses 
of  the  old  moated  house  become  darkened  as  the 
lights  are  turned  down  for  his  baleful  approach.  The 
ominous  figure  of  Jeffreys  invades  Durants  Arbour, 
casting  a  shade. 

It  will  surprise  some  people  to  learn  that  though 
no  name  but  that  of  Jeffreys  is  to  be  heard  of  in  con- 
nection with  Durants  Arbour  within  a  circuit  of  three 
miles,  the  greatest  difficulty  has  been  experienced  in 
finding  out  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  place. 
Inquiry  elicits  from  one  local  savant  that  Judge 
Jeffreys  lived  yonder :  another  tells  you  that  it  was 
Chancellor  Jeffreys'  house  ;  a  third'goesa  step  further 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  15 

and  says  that  Sir  George  Jeffreys  set  out  from 
Durants  Arbour  for  the  Bloody  Assize.  Curiosity 
having  been  raised  to  the  highest  pitch,  local  histories 
are  found  to  be  silent.  Not  even  a  mention  of  the 
cruel  Judge's  name  is  made.  As  the  only  real 
authorities  for  a  true  life  of  Jeffreys  are  the  State 
Trials  and  the  Newgate  Calendar,  both  depositories 
of  villainy  are  consulted.  Each  emits  an  empty 
sound.  Yet  still  local  rumour  remains  stubborn.  It 
will  have  it  that  Jeffreys  lived  at  Durants  Arbour. 
The  value  of  a  tradition  so  engrained  as  this  being  a 
factor  which  should  never  be  underrated  (because 
though  local  inhabitants  may  tell  lies,  they  are  not 
imaginative  enough  to  make  up  legends),  fuel  is  added 
to  research,  and  the  connection  of  Jeffreys  with 
Durants  Arbour  is  at  last  found — not  as  might  be 
supposed  in  some  obscure  pamphlet  on  Judicial 
Murders,  Bloody  Assizes,  and  processions  to  Tyburn 
and  kindred  gaols,  but  in  the  decorous  pages  of  a 
parish  register.  A  wedding,  and  not  an  unjust 
sentence  for  treason  never  committed,  prepares 
Ponders  End  for  the  Judge's  awful  approach.  And 
Jeffreys  enters  Durants  Arbour  to  the  sound  of 
marriage  music. 

So  unexpected  an  accompaniment  to  his  coming  is 
accounted  for  as  follows.  In  the  days  when  every 
civil  and  military  official  was  required  to  declare  that 
they  did  not  believe  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  when  Shaftesbury's  quarrel  with  Charles 
the  Second  gave  birth  to  our  modern  terms  "  Ministry  " 
and  "Opposition" — in  the  year  1673,  that  is  to  say, 
Durants  Arbour  was  sold  by  William  Lord  Maynard 


16  MOATED  HOUSES 

and  William  Maynard  (executors  of  Sir  Henry  Wroth, 
last  of  his  race)  to  Sir  Thomas  Stringer,  Knight,  for 
,£8,900.  Sir  Thomas  Stringer  was  a  lawyer  with  a 
large  practice,  and  contemporary  records  speak  of  him 
as  a  man  of  repute.  That  he  was  the  exact  opposite 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of 
Jeffreys'  most  intimate  friends ;  that  his  elevation  to 
the  Bench  fifteen  years  after  his  purchase  of  Durants 
was  the  last  appointment  that  Jeffreys  made  as 
Lord  Chancellor  ;  and  that  he  was  left  forty  shillings 
to  buy  a  remembrance-ring  with  in  Jeffreys'  last  will 
and  testament,  made  in  the  Tower  of  London  and 
dated  April  the  I5th,  1689.  Apart  from  this  strange 
piece  of  property,  however,  Sir  Thomas  Stringer  was 
also  possessed  of  a  son.  This  son's  name  was  William. 
And  William  married  one  of  Jeffreys'  daughters,  whose 
name  was  Margaret. 

The  marriage  took  place  at  Hedgerley,  Bucking- 
hamshire, on  October  I5th,  1687.  It  was  dissolved 
by  William's  death  in  the  second  year  of  Walpole's 
Administration,  and  his  widow  died  at  Durants  four 
years  afterwards,  in  the  reign  of  George  the  First. 
The  matrimonial  venture  is  only  memorable  from  the 
added  motive  it  lent  to  Jeffreys'  visits  to  a  house  so 
curiously  associated  with  his  name.  He  had  come  to 
Durants  as  a  friend.  He  now  came  to  it  also  as  a 
father-in-law.  That  his  visits  were  possibly  frequent 
may  be  supposed  from  the  ordinary  course  of  family 
affairs  under  the  influence  of  new  relationship  :  that 
they  were  certainly  so  may  be  gathered  from  the  in- 
delible impression  left  in  the  neighbourhood  after  a 
lapse  of  over  two  hundred  years  that  he  absolutely 


DURANTS   ARBOUR,    PONDERS   END.      JUDGE  JEFFREYS'   HOUSE 


DURANTS  ARBOUR  19 

owned  and  lived  at  the  house,  at  which  he  was   in 
fact  only  a  visitor. 

The  different  periods  of  Jeffreys'  stays  at  Durants 
Arbour  in  the  dual  capacity  of  friend  and  father-in- 
law  must  be  left  to  surmise,  since  two  centuries  have 
passed  since  his  last  call,  and  Sir  Thomas  Stringer's 
visiting-book  is  not  in  the  Record  Office  or  the  British 

o 

Museum.  His  own  house  at  Bulstrode  was  within 
an  easy  drive,  and  as  birds  of  a  feather  flock  together, 
especially  in  moments  of  suspense,  it  is  likely  that 
Jeffreys  took  counsel  with  his  friend  and  co-partner 
in  legal  villainy  at  the  most  strenuous  periods  of  his 
public  life.  He  bought  Bulstrode  five  years  after  Sir 
Thomas  Stringer  bought  Durants  Arbour,  and  no 
doubt  drove  over  to  Durants  to  tell  his  friend  of 
certain  royal  junketings  which  had  taken  place  at 
Bulstrode  in  August  1678.  Jeffreys,  in  his  newly 
acquired  dignity  of  Common  Serjeant,  had  in  that  state 
entertained  Charles  and  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth 
at  his  Buckinghamshire  home.  The  number  of 
healths  drunk  on  this  signal  instance  of  royal  favour 
is  on  record,  and  absolves  king  and  subject  from  any 
suspicion  of  being  temperance  reformers.  Jeffreys 
during  these  libations  would  have  tuned  his  voice  to 
a  catch,  and  old  Rowley  and  Louise  de  Querouaille 
no  doubt  joined  in.  One  of  the  Common  Serjeant's 
celebrated  chansons  a  boire  would  have  sounded  more 
than  usually  mellow  to  the  ears  of  the  frail  beauty 
who  was  at  the  moment  acting  as  an  agent  of  France 
and  persuading  her  royal  lover  to  sell  his  country. 
Do  they  not  make  a  charming  trio  ?  I  expect  that 
they  sang  three  or  four  catches  before  morning. 


20  MOATED  HOUSES 

Jeffreys  had  lost  his  first  wife  only  six  months 
before ;  but  this  did  not  matter.  He  had  married  a 
second  one  in  three  months,  and  the  erstwhile  Lady 
Jones  would  have  been  present  in  her  new  honours 
at  this  royal  orgy  ;  accompanied  Sir  George  on  his 
drive  over  to  Durants  ;  assisted  his  recital  of  the 
night's  humours  ;  and  done  a  little  match-making  with 
the  young  son  of  the  house,  while  her  husband  with- 
drew with  his  host  to  crack  a  bottle  or  two  in  the 
great  dining-hall,  and  to  discuss  what  could  be  illeg- 
ally done  in  the  way  of  legal  advancement.  A 
possible  instrument  for  the  purpose — Titus  Gates — 
had  lately  emerged  from  the  mud. 

I  can  see  the  great  coach  lumbering  over  the  draw- 
bridge at  the  close  of  some  such  visit  to  Durants 
Arbour,  as  it  carried  Sir  George  and  his  lady  back  to 
Bulstrode.  The  light  falls  on  the  Judge's  face  as  he 
leans  out  of  the  window  to  wave  a  good-bye  to  his 
boon  companion.  The  face  is  clearly  seen,  with  its 
handsome  effeminate  features,  a  white  smiling  mask 
framed  by  the  dark  curled  wig.  Thus  seen,  the  already 
dreaded  Judge  looks  like  some  wicked  woman.  The 
last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  stain  this  impression  of 
departing  justice  with  a  flush  of  red,  as  if  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  omens  coming  on.  Those  omens  soon 
reached  fulfilment.  Five  years  afterwards  Jeffreys 
was  Lord-Chief-Justice,  and  his  hands  were  red 
with  the  blood  of  Russell  and  Sidney,  who  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Rye  House 
Plot,  except  to  suffer  innocently  for  it.  Nor  were 
these  judicial  murders  sufficient  to  stay  those  relent- 
less feet  ever  hurrying  after  fresh  victims.  The 


21 

story  that  Jeffreys  actually  set  out  from  Durants 
Arbour  for  the  Bloody  Assize  stirs  the  imagination  ; 
but  published  records  are  against  this  belief  of  a 
countryside,  and  I  read  that  the  Lord-Chief-Justice 
set  out  to  decimate  four  counties  after  strengthening 
himself  for  the  effort  at  a  health  resort,  and  drinking 
the  waters  at  Tunbridge  Wells.  But  he  would  have 
visited  Durants  Arbour  on  his  return  from  that  ex- 
pedition of  butchery,  talked  over  his  late  judicial 
doings  with  Sir  Thomas  Stringer,  cracked  many  a 
bottle  over  the  pleasing  recollection,  fondled  his 
daughter  Margaret,  soon  to  be  mistress  of  the  place, 
and  sung  his  French  chansons  a  boire.  The  long 
succession  of  honest  owners  of  Durants,  and  Wroths, 
fade  before  this  memory  of  this  dreadful  visitor  to 
their  old  home. 

Suddenly  a  discordant  outburst  rises  from  that 
ruined  courtyard  of  Durants  Arbour  which  time  and 
an  infamous  memory  has  turned  into  a  piggery. 
The  clamours  of  eight  hundred  porkers  pining  to  be 
fed,  for  a  moment  drown  the  fancied  echoes  of  the 
wicked  Judge's  drinking  song.  But  only  for  a 
moment.  Then  above  that  raucous  yet  befitting 
chorus,  once  more  seems  to  rise  in  tones  of  mellow 
irony  the  infernal  jingle.  Jeffreys  asserts  himself. 


II 

OXBURGH   HALL 

THOSE  who  have  seen  and  admired  the  beautiful 
College  of  the  two  Queens  at  Cambridge  have 
seen  Oxburgh  Hall  without  its  moat.  Both 
buildings  are  of  the  same  period.  Both  are  built  of 
brick.  And  if  the  moat  at  Oxburgh,  with  its 
measurements  of  275  feet  by  52,  is  a  very  real  and 
substantial  affair,  Queens'  College,  Cambridge,  seen 
from  a  certain  point  of  view,  also  has  the  appearance  of 
being  moated.  With  their  external  resemblance,  as 
will  be  easily  realized,  all  parallels  between  the  build- 
ings cease.  Their  stories  travel  on  different  paths  and 
to  goals  very  diverse.  A  seat  of  learning  in  a  famous 
University  town,  and  a  country  gentleman's  defensible 
house,  moated,  towered,  battlemented  more  castelli, 
furnish  two  very  diverse  needs  in  a  nation's  life.  The 
figure  of  Erasmus,  scholar,  wit,  traveller,  diplomat, 
essentially  man  of  the  world,  musing  from  the  tower 
of  the  College  of  the  two  Queens  on  that  Renaissance 
which  was  bursting  into  life  about  his  feet,  typifies 
the  mission  of  the  Cambridge  foundation  :  from  under 
the  arched  tower  of  Oxburgh,  and  across  the  draw- 
bridge which  originally  spanned  the  moat,  generations 
of  Bedingfields  have  passed  out,  armed,  though  not 


OXBURGH  HALL  23 

with  learning,  to  other  battles  than  those  waged  with 
books, — but  immovably  steadfast  in  the  twofold 
cause  of  the  Monarchy  and  of  the  Faith. 

That  this  fine  Catholic  family  should  still  be 
quietly  cherishing  the  Old  Religion  in  a  house  built 
by  an  ancestor  who  had  worn  harness  at  the  battle 
of  Tewkesbury  is  a  fact  pleasing  to  all  who  shun 
blind  Change,  and  who,  uninfluenced  by  the  sight 
of  everything  being  turned  upside  down  to  reveal 
what  may  happen  to  be  under  it,  still  keep  a  respect 
for  the  stately  families  of  England  and  for  their  even 
still  more  stately  homes.  In  this  quality  the  house 
of  the  Bedingfields  shines  pre-eminent.  It  has  especi- 
ally "the  grand  air":  looks  a  place  which  has  seen 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  great  events  and  given  birth  to 
a  long  succession  of  noble  owners.  It  lays  a  lawful 
claim  to  nobility  among  mansions.  Not  quite  a  castle, 
it  is  still  clearly  a  house  built  with  strict  regard  to 
defensible  purpose.  And  Oxburgh  Hall  has  no  mean 
collection  of  antiquarian  treasures  to  defend,  though 
they  are  never  on  any  consideration  whatever  shown 
to  a  curious  public. 

The  approach  to  the  place  is  typical  of  the  military 
genius  of  its  founders.  It  has  a  martial  air.  The 
formidable-looking  entrance  to  this  treasure-house 
of  historic  memories  and  priceless  family  heirlooms 
opens  the  way,  as  has  been  said,  to  perfect  antiquarian 
banquets — to  any  one,  that  is  to  say,  who  has  the 
honour  to  be  a  visitor  or  the  fortune  to  be  possessor  of 
a  pass.  But  a  dim  suggestion  occurs  to  the  mind  that 
it  leads  also  to  dungeons.  Though  not  to  the  extent 
felt  at  first  sight  of  Ightham  (and  other  moated 


24  MOATED  HOUSES 

houses)  on  a  dreary  day,  this  fine  specimen  of  its  kind 
nevertheless  breathes  something  ominous.  The 
entrance  is  over  a  brick  bridge  coped  with  freestone. 
As  is  invariably  the  case,  the  original  wooden  draw- 
bridge has  long  ago  gone  the  way  of  all  wooden 
bridges,  in  the  boisterous  and  ghostly  company  of 
whole  hosts  of  retainers,  guests,  and  assailants,  who  in 
days  long  dead  respectively  raised  it  when  the  trumpet 
sounded  the  summons  of  arrival ;  waited  impatiently 
for  it  to  be  raised,  especially  when  the  weather  was 
rainy  or  the  wind  blew  from  the  north ;  and  were 
pushed  off  it  into  the  moat  in  the  act  of  trying  to 
rush  across.  The  visitor's  way  now  lies  through 
an  archway  in  the  main  tower  22  feet  long  by  13. 
Four  turrets  flank  the  gateway.  The  two  front  ones 
rise  10  feet  above  the  others,  and  plunge  more  than 
80  feet  down  to  their  foundations  in  the  moat. 

An  entrance  having  now  been  effected  with  no 
more  offensive  weapons  than  a  portmanteau  and  an 
umbrella,  the  extent  of  the  courtyard  round  which 
the  house  is  built  is  fully  seen.  It  looks  to  a  prac- 
tised eye  (unassisted  by  a  measuring  tape)  about 
40  yards  long,  by  30  yards  or  so  in  breadth.  On 
the  south  side  of  this  courtyard,  and  immediately 
opposite  the  entrance  gateway,  stands  the  finest 
old  Gothic  hall,  for  its  size,  in  England.  Fifty- 
four  feet  long,  34  feet  in  breadth,  and  roofed  with 
oak,  it  recalls,  in  the  form  of  an  exactly  proportioned 
miniature,  the  great  National  Monument  at  West- 
minster, on  which  masterpiece,  so  far  as  style 
and  form  are  concerned,  it  seems  to  have  been 
intentionally  modelled.  Next  to  this  masterpiece 


k'"*,_ 

' .    "» 

Jow«r  x  9w>pk'< 

^, ,    ,(f>/ 


OXBURGH 


OXBURGH  HALL  27 

of  its  kind  (according  to  Cotman)  the  library  calls 
for  notice ;  not  only  for  its  great  and  rare  collection 
of  printed  books,  many  of  them  properly  reflecting 
the  strictly  Catholic  views  of  the  family,  but  also  for 
a  memento  which  eloquently  proclaims  that  un- 
swerving loyalty  for  which  the  Bedingfields  have 
always  been  distinguished  :  a  manuscript  containing 
meditations  on  the  Passion  of  Christ  connects  the 
story  of  Oxburgh  with  the  great  Civil  War  when  the 
hopes  of  Charles  the  First,  after  long  and  bloody 
fluctuations,  faded  finally,  and  the  flower  of  Royalist 
England  went  down  before  Cromwell's  Ironsides 
at  Naseby  and  Marston  Moor.  The  then  repre- 
sentative of  the  Bedingfields  had,  from  the  first, 
taken  an  active  and  gallant  part  in  that  great 
struggle  ;  and  the  composition  of  this  much  and 
justly  prized  manuscript  solaced  the  long  hours  of 
an  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  of  London. 

To  a  year  and  three-quarters  imprisonment  as  a 
punishment  for  loyalty  was  added  the  sequestration  of 
the  prisoner's  estates.  These  were  redeemed  in  the 
jolly  times  when,  amidst  the  blazing  of  bonfires,  the 
King  enjoyed  his  own  again  and  in  the  too  seductive 
society  of  Barbara  Villiers  forgot  what  was  due  to 
other  people.  Sir  Henry  did  not  live  to  see  this  just 
and  tardy  restitution.  He  died  in  1657.  The  year 
succeeding  his  own  death  was,  however,  a  fatal  one 
to  his  martyred  master's  arch-enemy.  The  Pale 
Horseman  in  this  instance  at  all  events  distributed 
his  rewards  equally,  and  knocked  at  the  Palace  of  the 
Lord  Protector  very  shortly  after  his  awful  summons 
sounded  at  the  ancestral  home  of  the  Bedingfields. 


28  MOATED  HOUSES 

On  August  the  i6th,  1658,  the  death  of  Lady  Claypole, 
Cromwell's  favourite  daughter,  gave  the  Regicide 
Protector  a  shock  from  which  even  his  iron  tempera- 
ment failed  to  rally.  Shortly  afterwards  the  Quaker 
Fox  saw  the  shaft  of  death  go  out  against  the  usurper 
as  he  rode  by  at  the  head  of  his  Life  Guards  down 
the  long  avenue  of  Hampton  Court. 

The  way  into  Oxburgh  Hall  being  also  the  way 
out  of  it,  the  opportunity  now  arises  of  studying  the 
grand  entrance  gateway  more  carefully,  to  say  nothing 
of  various  apartments  in  both  towers.  The  unfolding 
of  the  richest  treasures  of  the  house  will  repay  the 
research,  though  the  price  exacted  is  an  ascent  up 
some  somewhat  precipitous  stairs.  The  gateway 
itself  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  the 
building.  It  remains  practically  in  the  original  state 
in  which  it  stood  when  the  fourth  Edward  lay  dying 
and  Caxton's  printing  press  was  at  work  in  the 
Sanctuary  of  Westminster.  Both  of  the  flanking 
towers  contain  several  rooms  with  windows  carefully 
adjusted  for  the  viewing  of  coming  friend  or  foe,  and 
ornamented  with  apertures  through  which  the  latter 
form  of  visitor  could  be  dealt  with  with  cross-bows, 
boiling  pitch,  or  anything  else  offensive  and  handy. 
Acchitects  will  notice  the  peculiarity  of  the  battlements 
of  the  tower.  Two  large  chimneys  have  their  base 
in  the  centre  of  the  pediment.  For  the  rest,  brick  is 
everywhere  in  evidence  at  Oxburgh.  Even  a  spiral 
staircase  in  the  tower  on  the  right  of  the  entrance  is 
built  of  this  essentially  English  material.  Armed  feet 
must  often  have  in  past  days  rung  on  these  stairs,  for 
they  lead  to  the  top  of  the  building,  from  which  stone 


OXBURGH  HALL  29 

copings  could  have  been  thrown  down  on  to  the 
upturned  faces  of  too  confident  assailants  in  moments 
of  stress  and  invention.  The  process  was  a  common 
form  of  amenity  in  mediaeval  sieges  (witness  de 
Bracy's  intended  exploit  of  this  kind  at  the  siege  of 
Torquilstone),  though  there  is  no  record  of  Oxburgh 
having  ever  had  to  stand  one.  To  return  for  a 
moment  to  architectural  details.  Ouatrefoil  aper- 
tures light  this  stair  and  tower  and  give  further 
opportunity  for  cross-bow  practice.  There  are  four 
rooms  in  the  tower  on  the  left  of  the  entrance, 
ornamented  with  coved  brick  roofs  and  projecting 
ribs. 

A  handsome  room  immediately  over  the  arched 
entrance  calls  for  more  detailed  notice.  Fine  brick 
has  been  used  in  its  flooring,  and  a  curious  tapestry 
covers  its  walls.  The  motley  group  of  kings, 
statesmen,  and  ladies  who  are  represented  in  this 
work  of  art,  busy  at  something  desperate  whose 
hidden  object  nobody  can  make  out,  once  fastened 
their  fixed  and  woolworked  eyes  on  royal  and  Tudor 
slumbers.  Henry  the  Seventh  is  said  to  have  slept 
here.  The  occasion  was,  probably,  that  of  his  carefully 
recorded  pilgrimage  to  Walsingham.  This  miserly 
King,  who  had  so  miraculously  escaped  Richard  the 
Third's  battleaxe  on  Bosworth  Field,  was  not  at  the 
moment  on  avarice  bent.  He  was  indeed  in  search 
of  further  miraculous  aid.  He  came  to  offer  vows 
and  prayers  for  help  and  deliverance  at  a  shrine 
which  was  in  those  days  almost  as  celebrated  as  that 
of  Thomas  a  Becket.  When  Lambert  Simnel's 
pretensions  subsequently  went  down  with  the  best 


30  MOATED  HOUSES 

blood  of  the  West  Country  at  the  battle  of  Stoke, 
and  when  that  fifteenth-century  Claimant  had  dis- 
covered that  he  was  not  the  Earl  of  Warwick  after 
all,  and  was  glad  of  a  job  as  scullion  in  the  King's 
kitchen,  Henry  showed,  for  so  mean  a  man,  some 
tangible  tokens  of  gratitude  for  so  fortunate  an  issue 
of  affairs.  He  sent  his  banner  as  a  thanks-offering 
to  Our  Lady  of  Walsingham,  and  a  silver-gilt  image 
of  himself  in  a  properly  grateful  posture  of  prayer. 
His  slumbers  at  Oxburgh  were  probably  easy  after 
this  relief  from  anxiety,  unless  they  were  disturbed 
by  miserly  regrets  at  having  parted  with  some 
property.  On  rising  next  morning  he  had  the 
opportunity  of  viewing  the  surrounding  country 
through  a  noble  window  looking  north,  and  of 
watching  the  bustle  of  a  great  house  preparing  a 
King's  breakfast,  through  two  bay  windows  looking 
into  the  courtyard. 

This  fine  room,  in  which  a  King  once  slept,  is 
naturally  held  in  great  veneration  by  the  Beding- 
fields.  It  is  named  after  the  royal  sleeper.  The 
bed  which  he  slept  in,  as  well  as  the  tapestry  which 
watched  over  those  august  slumbers,  are  looked 
upon  as  heirlooms  of  the  house.  A  Tudor  always 
left  his  or  her  mark  upon  a  place,  especially  when  the 
King  or  Queen  happened  to  be  recumbent. 

The  green  velvet  curtains  and  coverlet  of  the  bed, 
however,  had  no  share  in  giving  Henry  the  Seventh 
a  comfortable  night  or  the  reverse ;  for  its  gold- 
threaded  design,  representing  all  manner  of  birds  and 
beasts  with  their  names  inscribed  under  each  of  them 
to  prevent  any  naturalist's  mistake,  is  undoubtedly  the 


Onel  Window   *. 

S  Tower  f.  Ylw 
•"/ 


OXBURGH 


OXBURGH  HALL  33 

work  of  his  great-great-granddaughter.  The  deftness 
of  the  embroidery  of  itself  suggests  the  unfortunate 
artist ;  the  heart-stirring  initials  "  M.  S."  proclaim  her 
handiwork  beyond  doubt.  But  how  the  fortunes  of 
Henry  the  Seventh  and  Mary  Stuart  came  thus  to  be 
linked  in  a  bed-coverlet  at  Oxburgh  Hall  is  a  moot 
point.  Outside  authorities  are  silent.  And  nobody 
inside  is  quite  certain  how  it  got  into  the  house.  The 
added  name,  however,  of  Elizabeth  Shrewsbury  to 
Mary  Stuart's  initials,  marks  a  collaboration  which 
may  afford  a  clue  to  this  mystery.  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  once  at  Oxburgh  on  one  of  her  progresses.  She 
slept  in  the  room  over  Henry  the  Seventh's.  She 
may  have  had  in  her  train  the  notorious  Bess  of 
Hardwicke  in  one  of  her  intervals  of  favour,  and  the 
hard-featured,  loud-voiced,  red-haired  Derbyshire 
brokeress  of  manors  may  have  offered  this  memorial 
of  Mary  Stuart's  industry  at  Sheffield  or  Wingfield 
Manor  to  Gloriana,  who  was  never  reluctant  to 
grasp  anything  that  she  could  lay  hands  on.  All  was 
fish  that  came  to  this  Tudor's  net.  Coverlets  and 
gallants'  admiring  glances  were  as  acceptable  to  her 
as  doubloons.  Yet  a  revulsion  may  have  seized  even 
her  on  learning  whose  white  and  taper  fingers  had 
been  at  work  on  this  especial  coverlet.  A  ghost  may 
have  drawn  aside  the  tapestried  hangings  of  the 
royal  bed  and  held  up  a  menacing  finger.  Elizabeth, 
with  all  her  free-thought  in  religious  matters,  was  a 
believer  in  dreams.  She  would  have  ordered  the 
coverlet  made  by  that  nightly  visitant  not  to  be 
packed  up  with  her  other  belongings  when  the  day 
came  for  leaving  Oxburgh  and  the  courtyard  shone 
3 


34  MOATED  HOUSES 

with  the  green  and  white  liveries  of  her  busied  retinue 
preparing  for  departure  and  the  trumpets  were 
sounding  to  horse. 

Other  thoughts,  besides  speculations  on  a  bed- 
coverlet,  would  have  occupied  the  Queen's  mind 
during  her  visit  to  this  Norfolk  home.  Dreary  days 
must  have  been  recalled  :  days  when  her  present  host 
was  her  gaoler.  The  hospitalities  of  Oxburgh  must 
have  been  darkened  by  memories  of  the  Tower  of 
London.  The  morning  would  have  been  remembered 
when  Sir  Henry  Bedingfield,  then  in  the  first  flush  of 
success  at  Mary's  gloomy  Court,  introduced  himself 
as  custodian  to  the  imprisoned  sister.  The  times 
were  dark  and  full  of  danger.  The  axe  streamed 
with  blood  on  Tower  Hill.  It  had  already  fallen  on 
the  white  neck  of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  Nobody  could 
say  who  might  not  be  the  next  victim.  Many, 
including  Elizabeth  herself,  feared  the  worst.  When 
the  stern  representative  of  the  Bedingfields,  with  all 
the  grave  honours  of  the  Constableship  fresh  upon 
him,  presented  himself  before  his  royal  prisoner, 
Elizabeth  probably  thought  that  he  had  come  to  lead 
her  on  to  that  fatal  green  within  the  Tower  where  on 
a  May  morning  eighteen  years  ago  her  own  mother's 
head  had  fallen  under  the  sword  of  the  executioner  of 
Calais.  Sir  Henry,  she  noticed,  had  brought  a  new 
guard  of  a  hundred  soldiers  with  him,  clothed  in  blue. 
The  moment  was  a  doubtful  one.  But  Elizabeth's 
lion  heart  rose  at  this  uncertain  prospect.  Nor  had 
she  lost  the  use  of  her  tongue.  "Is  Lady  Jane's 
scaffold  taken  away  yet  ? "  she  carelessly  asked. 

She  would  have  remembered  that  incident  in  the 


OXBURGH  HALL  35 

midst  of  the  Oxburgh  festivities,  and  other  hardships 
too,  received  at  the  hands  of  the  stern  gaoler,  now  the 
accommodating  host.  The  interrupted  game  of  chess 
at  the  wayside  inn,  whose  conclusion  she  was  not 
allowed  to  see,  would  have  recurred  to  her,  as  such 
trifles  often  do.  Elizabeth  was  anxious  in  the  matter. 
Perhaps  she  had  a  small  wager  on  the  game.  Perhaps 
some  sinister  political  meaning  was  hidden  in  the 
moves  not  unconnected  with  a  programme  for  escape. 
Anyhow,  her  keeper  was  obdurate.  That  too  much 
attention  had  been  paid  to  the  Princess  in  that  place, 
was  Sir  Henry's  excuse  for  removing  his  royal  prisoner 
from  the  room  ;  and  who  won  that  game  of  chess 
Elizabeth  never  knew !  This  fact  alone  must  have 
annoyed  her,  for  she  was  all  her  life  a  speculator. 

Another  memory  of  the  past  may  have  crossed  her 
mind  as  she  was  about  to  leave  that  Oxburgh  where 
she  had  been  so  splendidly  entertained.  She  may 
even  have  thought  of  it  while  she  was  doing  her  hair, 
since  this  trouble  had  to  do  with  the  toilet.  While 
on  her  way  from  her  prison  at  Woodstock  (where  she 
had  whiled  away  the  time  by  writing  some  very  pretty 
verses)  to  another  one,  temporarily  organized  by  Lord 
William  at  Ricot,  a  violent  storm  of  wind  showed  so 
little  respect  for  the  divine  right  of  Queens,  even 
though  only  prospective  ones,  as  to  blow  her  head- 
dress off  three  times.  Upon  this  she  begged  leave 
to  retire  to  a  nobleman's  house  which  was  in  view  of 
the  scene  of  this  disaster,  for  the  simple  purpose  of 
repairing  it.  But  Sir  Henry,  who  seems  to  have 
suspected  that  armed  help  might  be  hid  under  a  lady's 
dressing-table,  refused  this  very  reasonable  request. 


36  MOATED  HOUSES 

He  suggested  an  adjacent  hedgerow  as  a  suitable 
chambre  de  toilette ;  and  the  greatest  of  the  Tudors 
might  have  been  seen  crouched  by  the  roadside 
doing  her  hair. 

It  can  scarcely  be  wondered  at  that  Elizabeth, 
when  she  came  to  her  own,  remembered  such 
incidents  of  her  past  as  these ;  that  she  rallied  that 
inflexible  custodian  of  days  gone  by,  now  turned 
into  host ;  that  in  the  presence  of  her  crowded 
and  gorgeous  Court  she  called  him  "gaoler."  The 
iron  of  adversity  had  entered  into  her  soul,  and  she 
felt  the  prick  of  it  even  in  the  days  of  prosperity. 
She  might,  however,  have  borne  in  mind,  when  these 
rallying  inclinations  seized  her  (Elizabeth  was  a  great 
tease),  that  Sir  Henry  Bedingfield  had  in  those  days 
of  the  Old  Faith's  brief  revival  looked  upon  her  as 
a  heretic,  and,  as  such,  the  natural  enemy  of  his 
munificent  mistress.  Some  architectural  adjuncts  to 
the  curiosities  of  Oxburgh  Hall  were  at  hand  to 
strengthen  this  religious  and  historical  suggestion. 
Two  years  having  to  pass  before  the  advent  of  what 
Froude  calls  the  Jesuit  Invasion,  two  very  remarkable 
hiding-places  may  not  yet  have  been  put  to  the  use 
which  was  afterwards  made  of  them.  Nor  on  this 
occasion  of  Elizabeth's  visit  would  she  be  likely  to 
have  clapped  eyes  on  these  ingenious  contrivances 
destined  in  a  short  time  so  often  to  make  the  search- 
ings  of  royal  pursuivants  of  no  avail.  The  troubled 
religious  times  were  already  beginning  to  cast  their 
persecuting  shadow  over  the  country.  The  specimens 
of  architectural  occultism  referred  to,  were  not  shown 
to  Protestants — especially  if  they  happened  to  be  reign- 


OXBURGH  HALL 


OXBURGH  HALL  39 

ing  ones ;  and  Elizabeth  would  have  left  the  towers 
of  Oxburgh  behind  her  without  seeing  the  ingenious 
hiding-place  in  the  turret  projecting  from  the  east 
tower.  This  remarkable  contrivance,  which  must 
have  been  often  used  to  conceal  a  persecuted  priest- 
hood, is  6  feet  long,  5  feet  wide,  and  7  feet  in 
height.  The  entrance  to  it  is  through  a  small 
arched  closet.  Inside  this  closet,  and  concealed  in 
the  pavement,  is  a  trap  door  formed  of  wooden  frame 
enclosing  bricks.  Its  centre  is  fixed  on  an  iron  axle. 
By  a  forcible  pressure  on  one  side  of  the  trap  door, 
the  other  side  rises ;  and  the  door  is  so  constructed 
and  situated  that  it  could  never  be  discovered  by 
accident.  Nor  would  a  second  Priest's  Hole,  as  they 
came  in  Persecution  days  to  be  called.  The  entrance 
to  this  one  was  beneath  a  fireplace.  So  secret  was 
its  contrivance  that  it  positively  took  a  demolition  to 
lay  it  bare.  And  the  family  only  realized  that  the 
place  had  hidden  missionaries  when  the  buildings  on 
the  south  side  of  the  court  were  pulled  down.  When 
this  discovery  was  being  made  at  Oxburgh  the  alliance 
of  France  and  Spain  with  America  was  being  sealed 
by  the  death  of  Chatham. 

The  departure  of  Elizabeth  gives  an  opportunity 
of  touching  on  other  incidents  in  the  history  of  the 
house.  Its  builder,  Sir  Henry  Bedingfield,  had  not 
yet  put  the  finishing  touches  to  this  noble  monument 
of  domestic  architecture,  when  the  baleful  and  dis- 
torted glance  of  Richard  the  Third,  ranging  among 
the  gorgeously  dressed  attendants  of  his  coronation, 
selected  him  as  a  worthy  recipient  of  the  honours  of 
a  Knight  of  the  Bath.  This  ceremony  completed, 


40  MOATED  HOUSES 

Richard  set  hurriedly  out  for  the  North  of  England, 
turning  haggard  looks  on  every  messenger  who 
came  near  him  ;  closing  his  ears  desperately  to  the 
rumours  with  which  even  the  North  Country  rang,  that 
the  two  young  Princes  had  been  murdered  in  the 
Tower.  Fearful  of  news  as  he  was,  he  strangely 
enough  seized  this  opportunity  of  facilitating  its 
transmission ;  and  King's  couriers,  running  regularly 
with  letters  from  the  North  of  England,  marked  the 
first  step  towards  our  penny  post.  I  do  not  know 
whether  Sir  Henry  followed  the  fortunes  of  his  crook- 
backed  master  to  the  final  arbitrament  on  Bosworth 
Field.  If  he  did  so,  a  striking  example  is  furnished 
of  the  general  union  of  hearts  which  followed  the  close 
of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  by  Henry  the  Seventh's 
visit  to  Oxburgh  two  years  after. 

The  slumbers  of  conquering  Royalty  which  signal- 
ized this  occasion  have  been  referred  to,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  disturb  them  again.  No  echoes  of  the 
great  struggle  lately  ended  broke  the  quiet  of  that 
social  function  ;  but  the  courtyard  of  Oxburgh  rang  to 
armed  heels  sixty  odd  years  after,  when  Sir  Henry, 
son  of  Sir  Edmund,  mustered  150  men  and  rode  to 
Framlingham  on  a  rainy  July  day  in  defence  of 
Queen  Mary  and  the  Catholic  Religion.  The  success- 
ful career  of  this  soldier  and  politician  has  been  traced 
through  two  reigns.  The  austerities  of  Mary's  Court, 
and  the  spacious  times  of  Elizabeth,  seem  to  have 
equally  suited  Sir  Henry's  firm  yet  cautious  temper. 
Strict  Catholic  as  he  was,  he  contrived  without  offence 
to  his  own  susceptibilities  to  thrive  as  a  Protestant 
courtier,  though  the  sword  and  lance  which  had 


OXBURGH  HALL  41 

gleamed  at   Framlingham  lay  long  rusting  through 
those  piping  times  of  peace. 

Sir  Henry,  second  of  that  name,  took  those 
doughty  weapons  down  from  the  Oxburgh  walls 
when  Charles  the  First's  standard  was  unfolded  on 
that  stormy  August  afternoon  at  Nottingham,  and 
when  families  were  divided  against  each  other  and 
brother  fought  against  brother  in  the  long  struggle 
of  the  Civil  War.  No  such  divided  purpose 
affected  the  undeviating  loyalty  of  the  Beding- 
fields  of  those  stormy  times.  The  head  of  the 
house  followed  the  fortunes  of  his  King  through 
many  a  stricken  field,  till  the  royal  cause  was  lost 
beyond  present  redemption  on  the  field  of  Naseby. 
The  stone  walls  of  the  Tower  and  the  sequestration 
of  his  estates  rewarded  the  Cavalier's  loyal  service, 
without  being  able  to  impair  his  constancy  to  a  lost 
cause.  And  though  he  died  without  seeing  the  glories 
of  the  Restoration  and  the  restitution  of  the  estates 
which  he  had  so  chivalrously  staked  for  his  master, 
he  never  bemoaned  the  misfortunes  which  had  followed 
that  gallant  and  self-sacrificing  loyalty. 

The  spirit  of  this  departed  Cavalier  seems  to 
animate  this  old  house  which  his  loyalty  sacrificed  : 
to  outshine  the  honours  of  Henry  the  Seventh's  stay 
under  its  roof,  and  the  glories  of  Elizabeth's  progress. 
Others  among  the  moated  houses  of  England  have 
enjoyed  distinctions  such  as  these;  have  done  the  State 
some  service  ;  and  as  a  reward,  have  sunned  themselves 
in  the  smiles  of  Royalty.  But  the  service  has  been 
given  by  a  varying  race  of  owners,  and  the  recipients 
of  it  have  not  always  been  sure  of  the  continuance  of 


42  MOATED  HOUSES 

the  gift.  To  Oxburgh  Hall  has  been  granted  a  fuller 
share  of  honour  among  houses.  No  one  but  a 
Bedingfield  has  ever  lived  under  its  roof.  And  no 
passing  change  of  feeling  or  of  fancy  has  for  a 
moment  interrupted  the  Bedingfields'  staunch  loyalty 
to  the  Monarchy,  or  their  unalterable  fidelity  to  their 
Faith. 


i 

\.\ 


Ill 

MARKENFIELD   HALL 

i 

THE  licence  to  crenellate  this  moated  house, 
which  lies  three  miles  south-west  of  Ripon,  was 
granted  by  Edward  the  Second  in  1310;  but 
the  building,  as  it  now  stands,  was  probably  completed 
in  Edward  the  Third's  time  and  by  the  same  master 
architect  and  artist  in  stone  who  had  just  finished  the 
grand  restoration  at  Ripon  Minster.  The  mouldings 
and  pyramidal  turrets  of  both  buildings  are  practically 
the  same.  With  the  exception  of  Aydon  Castle  in 
Northumberland,  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  attain 
to  the  dignity  of  being  truly  moated,  Markenfield 
Hall  is  as  good  an  example  of  a  perfect  house  of  the 
period  as  can  be  seen  in  England.  It  stands  four- 
square to  all  the  winds  that  blow ;  is  surrounded  by 
a  moat  still  full  of  water ;  and  though  a  certain  stern 
aspect  which  it  wears  might  entitle  it  to  be  called  a 
castle  (the  incomparable  Dalgetty,  in  the  Legend  of 
Montrose,  would  have  been  very  strong  on  this  point), 
it  is  in  fact  merely  a  house  of  a  transition  period  in 
domestic  architecture  built  with  some  attention  to 
security.  In  this  respect  it  may  be  fairly  considered 
as  a  typical  building  of  those  times  which  brought 
the  moated  house  into  being.  These  buildings  tell 


44  MOATED  HOUSES 

in  stone  and  timber  the  slowly  civilizing  influences 
which  were  gradually  stealing  into  England's  life. 
The  grosser  barbarities  of  Feudalism  were  beginning 
to  disappear  before  a  growing  feeling  of  security 
which  slowly  but  surely  paved  the  way  to  a  civilizing 
social  intercourse.  Country  neighbours  began  to 
call  on  each  other  without  drawn  swords  in  place 
of  visiting-cards,  or  spear-heads  to  represent  writing 
materials.  Oubliettes  disclosed  their  unsuspected 
depths  less  frequently  to  undesirable  visitors  and  to 
cantankerous  tradesmen  calling  for  their  last  account, 
which  too  often  was  there  paid  in  full.  Polish 
began  to  appear  when  Edward  the  Third  was  King  ; 
and  these  moated  houses  with  it.  They  represent 
the  genius  of  architecture  in  a  pose  of  pause.  They 
hesitate  picturesquely  between  a  hospitable  confidence 
and  an  armed  precaution. 

Markenneld  Hall  is  full  of  memories  of  the  sturdy 
race  of  founders  who  gave  it  their  name.  They  had 
lived  on  the  land  on  which  the  house  is  built  so  far 
back  as  the  reign  of  Henry  the  First.  They  were  only 
severed  from  it  by  the  relentless  confiscation  which 
followed  an  abortive  conspiracy.  The  armorial 
bearings  of  this  fine  race  of  valiant  soldiers  are  to  be 
seen  in  the  Oratory  of  the  house  in  connection  with  a 
piscina  highly  enriched  :  and  heralds  thus  read  them  : 
— Quarterly  one  and  four ;  on  a  bond  three  bezants 
Markenfield  ;  second,  a  fesse  between  six  escallops  ; 
third,  three  conic  helmets.  Supporters,  two  stags 
regardant.  Crest,  a  hind's  head  affrontte.  But 
Heraldry  stepped  in  late  to  make  this  decoration.  The 
device  had  been  seen  emblazoned  on  the  shield  of 


MARKENFIELD  HALL  47 

the  family  through  a  long  succession  of  stricken 
fields  in  which  the  representative  of  the  Markenfields 
fought  always  in  the  front  rank.  Further  proofs  of 
the  martial  leaning  of  the  family  are  to  be  seen  on 
the  north  side  of  the  courtyard,  where  a  number  of 
heraldic  shields  conspicuously  placed  give  further 
details  of  the  house's  story  (to  those  who  can  read 
them),  or  would  do  so,  if  four  of  them  had  not  been 
irretrievably  defaced.  The  fifth  shield,  however,  bears 
the  family  arms,  the  sixth  a  cross  flory,  the  seventh 
three  mitres,  the  eighth  an  eagle  displayed,  the  ninth 
five  fusils  each  with  an  escallop  for  Plumpton. 
This  departed  race  of  warriors  were  mighty  hunters 
too,  and  they  very  likely  indulged  in  impromptu 
steeplechases  on  their  way  to  battle,  or  on  their 
sprightly  expeditions  to  course  wild  boars.  They 
had  the  opportunity  of  looking  on  such  gatherings  in 
the  courtyard  as  we  now  call  Meets — men,  dogs, 
horses,  and  servants  handing  round  refreshments- 
through  two  long  windows,  divided  by  mullions  into 
two  lights,  with  trefoil  heads,  or,  after  ascending  a 
winding  staircase  enclosed  in  a  turret,  from  the  battle- 
ment of  the  Castle.  Spofforth  Castle  shows  a 
similarly  constructed  way  of  ascending  to  an  upper 
storey.  From  each  point  of  vantage,  unless  caution 
is  exercised  in  dealing  with  the  stairs,  a  descent  at 
express  speed  can  be  made.  At  Markenfield,  if  you 
should  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  fall  down  the  Baronial 
stair,  you  will  find  yourself  in  the  Baronial  stable. 

A  comment  on  mediaeval  housekeeping  at  once 
suggests  itself.  The  fondness  which  sporting  Barons 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  for  their  horses,  as  well  as  an 


48  MOATED  HOUSES 

imperviousness  to  certain  scents  which  rise  from  the 
place  where  they  are  stalled,  is  clearly  shown  at 
Markenfield,  and  in  many  other  houses  of  the  period, 
by  the  stables  being  placed  in  immediate  juxta- 
position to  the  dwelling-house.  These  warriors  and 
sportsmen  of  Edward  the  Third's  time  were  not 
afflicted  with  nerves  of  any  kind,  certainly  not  with 
too  sensitive  olfactories.  They  not  only  did  not 
mind  the  stable  smell,  but  they  particularly  liked  to 
have  their  horses  at  hand  for  a  speedy  mounting. 
And  that  the  Markenfields  were  especially  fond  of 
their  horses  is  not  only  shown  by  the  fact  that  Sir 
Ninian,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  race, 
left  his  favourite  charger  as  a  mortuary  to  the 
Monastery  of  Ripon,  but  also  by  the  perfectly  equal 
division  of  the  house  into  stable  and  family  residence. 
Man  and  beast  enjoyed  the  same  measure  of  shelter 
and  food  in  this  Yorkshire  home.  The  Marken- 
fields were  content  with  the  north  and  east  corners 
of  the  quadrangle  to  eat,  drink,  and  sleep  in.  They 
left  the  south  and  west  sides  to  their  four-footed 
friends. 

People  who  lived  at  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century  remembered  the  existence  of  certain  large 
buildings  and  offices  standing  outside  the  moat. 
And  they  have  attributed  these  outside  foundations 
to  stables.  There  is,  however,  as  little  to  be  seen 
of  these  buildings  now  as  was  ever  to  be  seen 
of  this  purpose  to  which  they  are  supposed  to 
have  been  put.  Stables  on  the  other  side  of  the 
moat  are  appendages  of  much  later  moated  houses 
than  Markenfield,  and  are  the  buildings  of  a  much 


49 

later  generation  of  owners.  Elizabethans  may  have 
developed  a  finer  sense  of  smell,  as  they  developed  a 
premature  craving  to  drive  on  impossible  roads  in 
unwieldy  coaches.  Nocturnal  raids  were  things  of 
the  past  in  Gloriana's  golden  days.  Everybody 
pined  for  a  carriage,  just  as  most  people  nowadays 
pine  for  a  motor  car ;  and  the  distance  between  the 
hall  door  and  the  coach-house  did  not  so  much 
matter.  But  no  proprietor  of  a  moated  house  who 
lived  in  the  days  of  Crecy  and  Neville's  Cross,  of  the 
Peasants'  Revolt,  or  of  the  first  battle  of  St.  Albans 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  second),  when  offensive  visits 
were  to  be  expected  at  any  moment  from  armed 
neighbours  labouring  under  different  political  views, 
or  from  starving  labourers  intent  on  equality  and 
loot, — no  proprietor  of  these  merry  days,  I  say, 
would  have  dreamt  for  a  moment  of  allowing  himself 
to  be  separated  from  his  horses  by  a  broad  sheet  of 
water,  even  if  the  drawbridge  of  the  house  was 
always  in  a  working  state.  Accidents  happened 
before  Waterloo.  Drawbridges  may  have  gone 
wrong  even  in  the  days  of  Crecy. 

There  was  a  very  ponderous  one  at  Markenfield 
in  the  old  days  of  the  house,  which  must  have  taken 
a  lot  of  lifting  when  the  lord  of  the  Castle  had  to  cry 
"  Up  drawbridge,  grooms ! "  too  suddenly.  But  it 
has  long  since  passed  into  the  limbo  of  things  for- 
gotten, together  with  the  portcullis,  which  in  a  similar 
desperate  state  of  domestic  affairs  would  have  been 
ordered  to  fall  at  express  speed.  There  is,  I  believe, 
only  one  moated  house  in  England  which  still  keeps, 
and  in  working  order  too,  one  of  these  silent  wit- 

4 


50  MOATED  HOUSES 

nesses  to  the  insecurity  of  the  times.  Immovable 
stone  has  everywhere  else  taken  the  place  of  the 
wooden  structures  whose  sole  reason  for  existing  lay 
in  their  capacity  of  being  moved  up  and  down  with 
the  utmost  speed  and  at  a  moment's  notice.  If 
anything  went  wrong  with  that  lift  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  assailant  and  assailed  were  likely  to  enter  the 
house  together  and  fighting  hand  to  hand.  But 
time  rounds  all ;  and  the  time  came,  even  in  the 
history  of  moated  houses,  when  an  undesirable  visitor 
ceased  to  be  so  pushing,  and  had  left  off  wearing 
armour,  and  when  for  the  purpose  of  disconcerting 
him,  it  was  only  necessary  to  slam  the  front  door  in 
his  face.  A  porter,  well  instructed  in  his  art,  would 
bawl  at  the  same  time,  from  the  inner  side  of  it,  that 
you  were  "not  at  home," — a  process  which  with 
slight  reforms  obtains  at  the  present  day.  But  even 
under  these  improved  conditions  of  amenity  it  was 
evidently  felt  necessary  that,  with  the  drawbridge  a 
thing  of  the  past,  the  door  should  be  of  such  sturdy 
structure  as  to  prevent  all  possibility  of  extra  per- 
sistent visitors  breaking  it  in.  "  Not  at  home  "  was 
not  always  taken  as  a  signal  for  going  away  in  those 
days  any  more  than  it  is  now.  And  it  is  perhaps  in 
consequence  of  this  necessary  saving  clause  for 
keeping  their  interiors  free  from  undesirables,  that 
these  moated  houses  nearly  all  possess  doors  of 
such  formidable  strength  as  not  only  to  have  resisted 
the  indignant  blows  of  baulked  afternoon  callers,  but 
the  more  ponderous  assaults  of  time  itself.  They 
are  most  of  t)iem  the  original  doors  made  out  of 
stout  English  oak.  Even  in  such  an  early  specimen 


ex, 

S 


MARKENFIELD 


MARKENFIELD  HALL  53 

of  a  moated  house  as  Markenfield,  though  the 
original  door  is  gone,  its  head  of  oak  curiously  carved 
is  still  in  existence,  stamped  of  course  with  the  family 
arms. 

The  history  of  this  family  has  now  to  be  traced. 
It  shows  itself,  as  so  often  happens,  a  history  whose 
tendencies  and  whose  character  seem  reflected,  as  if 
by  deliberate  intention,  from  the  walls  which  once 
environed  it.  The  aspect  of  Markenfield  Hall  is 
purely  and  nobly  Baronial.  Its  possessors  will  be 
seen  instinct  with  the  stern  yet  gorgeous  character- 
istics of  the  Barons'  Age.  So  long,  however,  is  the 
line  of  their  distinguished  descent,  and  so  equally 
shared  by  all  of  them  were  the  qualities  of  a  sturdy 
independence  and  of  a  courage  amounting  almost  to 
ferocity,  that  it  will  be  as  hard  to  avoid  sameness  in 
the  record  as  it  is  difficult  to  say  where  to  begin  it. 
Perhaps  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  Markenfield 
Hall  it  may  be  advisable  to  begin  with  some  mention 
of  its  builder.  This  will  be  to  begin  with  the  be- 
ginning. His  name  was  Thomas,  though  there  were 
Thomases  and  Ninians  before  him,  as  there  were 
Thomases  and  Ninians  after.  Sir  Thomas  the 
builder  held  the  highest  reputation  as  a  soldier 
during  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  which 
numbered  the  sounding  names  of  Crecy  and  Poitiers 
among  its  victories,  and  set  up  as  model  for  its 
typical  commander  the  chivalrous  personage  of  the 
Black  Prince.  With  such  an  example  to  copy,  mili- 
tary aspirants  had  to  aim  high,  and  Sir  Thomas 
Markenfield  showed  prominently  in  the  competition 
long  before  he  was  thirty-nine  years  old.  Details  of 


54  MOATED  HOUSES 

his  individual  efforts  in  the  foreign  wars  are  lacking, 
for  war  correspondents  were  not  in  existence  in 
those  days,  and  bulletins  were  not  very  full.  Widely 
acknowledged  reputation  for  courage,  however,  may 
be  put  to  Sir  Thomas's  account,  together  with  the 
fact  that  he  married  a  wife  who  not  only  had  great 
possessions  but  a  very  pretty  name.  Dionisia  she 
was  called !  And  a  certain  ring  about  it  suggests 
that  she  may  have  been  of  a  tyrannical  disposition. 
She  lies  by  her  martial  husband's  side  in  the  family 
chapel  of  Ripon  Minster.  So  does  Sir  Thomas 
Markenfield  the  second,  who  married  Ellen,  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Hotham  ;  so  do  several  more  of  these 
dauntless  soldiers,  who  established  quite  a  national 
reputation  for  the  gorgeous  ornamentation  of  their 
armour.  The  crests  of  the  Markenfields  were 
loftier  than  the  crests  of  other  Knights.  And  the 
ghastly  and  undeviating  way  in  which  they  dealt 
death  on  any  person  holding  opposite  views  to  theirs 
and  who  had  the  bad  luck  to  cross  their  path,  was 
a  matter  for  shuddering  comment. 

Some  generations  in  so  consistent  a  pedigree  of 
pugnacity  may  be  passed  over,  and  pause  made  at  the 
mention  of  Sir  Thomas  Markenfield  of  Markenfield 
(the  third),  whose  story  shows  some  slight  change  in 
the  family  tendency,  though  it  does  not  seem  altogether 
certain  that  the  change  was  towards  edification.  This 
bold  Knight,  whose  wife's  name  was  Margaret,  is  said 
to  have  been  a  favourite  of  Edward  the  Fifth,  though 
this  seems  impossible.  A  volume  of  grants  in  the 
British  Museum  shows  him  the  recipient  of  an 
annuity  of  a  hundred  marks  during  his  life  and  six 


MARKENFIELD  HALL  55 

manors  in  Somersetshire.  Considering  that  Edward 
was  only  King  two  months  under  a  Protectorate,  it 
is  probable  that  these  gifts  were  made  by  the  hand 
of  the  Protector,  and  that  Protector  Richard  the 
Third.  Sir  Thomas  was  at  all  events  High  Sheriff 
of  York  when  the  humpbacked  tyrant  met  his  death 
on  Bosworth  Field,  shouting  "  Treason  !  treason !  " 
and  levelling  Henry  the  Seventh's  standard-bearer. 
Henry  had  taken  two  opportune  steps  backward  at 
that  fatal  moment,  or  he  would  never  have  written 
"King"  after  his  name.  The  exact  date  of  this 
third  Thomas  Markenfield's  death  is  not  certain. 
But  the  date  of  his  will,  8th  April  1497,  suggests  that, 
if  he  had  been  a  favourite  of  Richard  or  Edward, 
either  his  political  sympathies  had  veered  to  the 
victorious  side,  or  that  he  had  propitiated  Henry 
the  Seventh  by  a  large  donation  to  that  royal  miser's 
strong  -  box  or  by  an  undisclosed  act  of  political 
perfidy.  He  desired,  in  his  own  quaint  way  of 
spelling,  "  to  be  beried  afore  the  Awter  of  Saynt 
Androwe  in  the  Monastry  of  Saynt  Wilfrede  in 
Ripon  emonge  the  berialle  of  his  ancestors." 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  him,  however, 
was  that  certain  trait  of  treachery  in  his  character 
above  noticed,  which,  showing  itself  first  of  all  in  his 
nimble  adoption  of  the  character  of  political  turncoat, 
was  transmitted  to  his  descendants  in  that  more 
manly  though  more  fatal  form  which,  in  a  future 
generation,  made  Markenfields  into  conspirators. 
Sir  Thomas's  son,  the  celebrated  Sir  Ninian,  avoided 
this  taint  (just  as  sometimes  the  second  son  in  a  gouty 
family  escapes  the  disease).  He  shone  pre-eminently 


56  MOATED  HOUSES 

as  a  soldier,  and  commanded  at  Flodden  with 
Lord  Clifford,  where  he  upheld  the  military  honour 
of  his  family  "in  armour  coat  of  cunning  work," 
and  dealt  out  a  quality  of  lance-thrusts  and  sword- 
blows  which  had  not  before  come  under  the  notice 
of  James  the  Fourth's  mountaineers.  He  also 
in  softer  fields  of  action  gave  further  evidence 
of  his  loyalty  by  marrying  Eleanor,  daughter  of 
Lord  Clifford,  and  his  wife's  mother  was  cousin- 
german  to  Henry  the  Seventh.  But  the  taint  of 
treachery  is  like  that  gout  to  which  reference  has 
been  made.  Once  fixed  in  a  family  it  sometimes 
skips  a  generation,  only  to  break  out  in  the  succeeding 
one  with  an  increased  virulence.  And  so,  though 
Sir  Ninian,  son  of  a  turncoat,  had  escaped  his  father's 
weakness,  and  had  remained  a  warrior,  Sir  Thomas 
(the  fourth,  and  Sir  Ninian's  son)  inherited  his  grand- 
father's failings  in  a  more  marked  degree,  and  lent 
his  military  or  his  designing  capacities  to  the  service 
of  treason.  He  is  supposed  to  have  had  his  fingers 
in  nearly  every  rebellion  in  the  latter  part  of  Henry 
the  Eighth's  reign.  He  fed  with  counsel  or  money 
the  revolt  which  broke  out  in  Lincolnshire.  He 
covertly  ministered  to  the  religious  and  agrarian 
discontent  which  set  Yorkshire  in  arms.  His  motto 
was  not  exactly  Lord  Hussey's,  who  was  heard  to 
say,  "The  world  will  never  mend  till  we  fight  for  it," 
for  his  aim  was  rather  to  let  other  people  do  the 
fighting,  while  he  reaped  the  results  of  their  strenuous 
efforts.  But  with  all  his  astuteness  he  narrowly 
escaped  being  taken  red-handed  as  an  active 
participator  in  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  He  was 


v       iX       •   xSl.  xV-4- 

•jffL\    '»  ^V:       ' 

PSwJ          -,;  w».     ' 


MARKENFIELD  HALL  $9 

suspected  of  having  followed  the  banner  bearing  the 
host,  the  chalice,  and  the  seven  wounds  of  Christ, 
through  many  a  Yorkshire  hamlet.  It  was  believed 
that  he  had  much  to  do  with  the  enrolment  of 
those  thirty  thousand  tall  and  well-horsed  men  who 
mustered  on  the  banks  of  the  Don.  The  arrest  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  the  executions 
of  Lords  Darcy,  Hussey,  and  the  Abbots  of  Barlings, 
Whalley,  Woburn,  and  Sawley  saw  this  Thomas 
Markenfield  still  living  in  immunity,  and  still  secretly 
conspiring.  How  he  managed  to  escape  from  a 
vengeance  whose  ruthless  severity  covered  Yorkshire 
with  gibbets  remains  one  of  those  mysteries  which 
are  not  always  to  be  discovered  in  State  papers.  But 
he  died  in  his  bed  at  Markenfield  on  i8th  April  1550, 
and  is  said  to  have  attributed  his  political  back- 
slidings  to  the  religious  zeal  of  his  wife. 

Her  name  was  Margaret,  and  she  was  the 
daughter  of  John  Norton,  Esquire  of  Norton.  And 
there  is  this  to  be  said  of  Sir  Thomas's  somewhat 
tardy  plea  :  no  family  in  England  was  more  celebrated 
than  these  Nortons  for  their  devotion  to  the  Old 
Faith.  But  the  mother's  religious  enthusiasm  and 
the  father's  more  worldly  zeal  worked  with  final  and 
disastrous  effect  on  the  fortunes  of  their  eldest  son 
and  heir.  His  name  also  was  Thomas  (the  fifth). 
He  was  only  seventeen  when  he  married  Isabel, 
daughter  of  Sir  William  Ingleby  of  Ripley,  and  he 
was  only  seventeen  when  he  set  out  on  that  road  of 
conspiracy  and  rebellion  which  led  by  the  strait 
and  narrow  way  to  the  ruin  of  his  house.  No  man 
who  conspired  for  Mary  Stuart  seems  ever  to  have 


60  MOATED  HOUSES 

had   a   head   upon   his    shoulders.     Northumberland 
and  Westmoreland  were  no  exceptions  to  the  rule, 
though  the  Rising  of  the  North  which  is  named  after 
them  is  said  to  have  been  in  reality  planned  by  young 
Thomas  Markenfield  and  one  of  the  Swinburnes,  who 
supplied  what  there  was  of  brains  in  an  enterprise  to 
which  the  two  Earls  merely  played  the  part  of  figure- 
heads.    Into  this  disastrous  movement,  which  he  is 
supposed    to   have    set   on  foot,   young   Markenfield 
threw  himself,  with  all  the  courage  and  energy  of  his 
forebears,  but  with  none  of  his   father's   faculty  for 
urging  others  forward  while  discreetly  drawing  back 
himself.     Clad     in     the     splendid     armour     always 
associated  with  his  house,  young  Markenfield  heard 
the  bells  of  Tadcaster   ringing   backwards,    entered 
Durham   riding  by  the   side   of  Westmoreland  and 
Northumberland,  saw  the  Prayer  Book  torn  to  pieces 
in  Durham  Cathedral,  and  attended  the  celebration 
of  the  Mass.     Doncaster  presently  resounded  to  the 
cry   of   "  Reduce  all   causes   of   religion  to   the   old 
usage   and    custom."     And    there    was    probably    no 
man  who  believed  more  firmly  than  Markenfield  that 
"  there  were  not  ten  men  who  approved  of  Elizabeth's 
religious  proceedings,"   till   he  and  his    enthusiastics 
arrived  before  York  and  encountered  Sussex.     Before 
the    military  dispositions   of  that    sturdy  and  plain- 
spoken  veteran  the  army  of  the  rebel  Earls  melted 
like  snow.      Nobody  seems  to  know  why  they  went, 
though  where  they  went  was  soon  within  the  know- 
ledge of  an  avenging  Government,  and  a  Markenfield 
for  the  first  time  in  the  family  history  found  himself  in 
chains.       His  extreme  youth  is  put  forward    as    the 


MARKENFIELD  HALL  61 

reason  of  his  escaping  the  death  penalty.  But  the 
great  extent  of  his  estates  helped  to  propel  Elizabeth 
gently  forward  on  the  path  of  mercy.  Markenfield 
Hall  and  its  broad  acres  were  confiscated  by  the  Crown, 
and  the  last  of  his  race  died  twenty-three  years  after, 
broken  down  by  poverty  and  neglect,  heart-sick  for 
the  loss  of  his  home,  and  embittered  by  corruptions 
and  the  official  neglect  of  the  Spanish  military 
authorities  under  whose  command  he  had  fought  as 
an  exiled  soldier  of  fortune. 

The  attainder  and  exile  of  this  last  representative 
of  the  Markenfields  bring  the  record  of  Markenfield 
Hall  to  its  fatal  and  melancholy  close.  Those  hire- 
ling footsteps  treading  the  old  Yorkshire  house  must 
have  sounded  across  the  seas  and  have  reached  the 
ears  of  the  melancholy  and  pining  exile  :  must  have 
added  the  final  drops  to  an  already  brimmed  chalice 
of  despair.  They  banish  all  thoughts  of  the  after- 
history  of  the  house ;  forbid  all  details  of  an  alien 
though  distinguished  ownership  ;  though  it  included 
the  widely  respected  names  of  the  Grantleys,  and,  in 
an  ancestor  to  the  celebrated  Duke  of  Bridgewater, 
a  Lord  Chancellor  of  England. 


IV 
BISHAM 

THERE  is  a  picture  in  the  dining-room  at 
Bisham  which  remains  a  more  vivid  memory 
than  the  gigantic  trees,  the  projecting  oriels, 
the  tall  tower  of  the  house,  the  conventual  barn  of 
Spanish  chestnut,  the  old-world  and  moated  garden, 
the  broad  sweep  of  the  noble  river,  which  is  the 
admiration  of  all  lovers  of  the  Thames  and  which,  to 
those  who  have  never  seen  it,  is  made  familiar  by  the 
genius  of  De  Wint.  The  picture  is  the  portrait  of  a 
lady  wearing  the  coif,  weeds,  and  wimple  allowed  to 
a  Knight's  widow  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  A 
certain  spectral  effect  is  lent  to  this  painting  by  the 
lady's  strangely  white  face  and  hands.  The  lady 
of  this  portrait,  painted  in  the  austere  style  of  the 
period,  who  put  on  these  widow's  weeds  three 
hundred  and  forty-two  years  ago,  when  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  thinking  of  opening  the  Royal 
Exchange,  and  Lord  Darnley  was  meditating  through 
dark  and  storm-riven  nights  the  murder  of  Rizzio, 
looks  as  if  she  might  have  sat  to  the  artist  who 
painted  her,  as  model  for  a  ghost. 

It  is  in  this  character  that  she  is  said  to  still  haunt 

one  of  the  Bisham  bedrooms  with  a   spectral  basin 

62 


••  ^mj*mm&^ 


- 

-.  , 


BISHAM     ABBEY 


BISHAM  63 

moving  before  her,  in  which  she  appears,  like  another 
Lady  Macbeth,  to  be  perpetually  trying  to  wash  her 
hands.  Such  ghostly  ablutions  are  needed,  if  the 
legend  of  the  house  is  to  be  believed.  It  is  said  that 
the  original  of  the  eerie  portrait  in  the  Bisham  dining- 
room  beat  one  of  her  children  to  death  because  he 
could  not  write  a  line  in  his  copy-book  without  making 
a  blot.  Our  twentieth-century  imagination,  or  rather, 
our  twentieth-century  lack  of  it,  reels  at  the  record  of 
such  a  cold-blooded  crime  as  well  as  at  its  reported 
chastisement.  That  the  wife  of  that  Sir  Thomas 
Hoby  who  died  while  performing  the  duties  of 
England's  Ambassador  in  France,  and  who  could 
herself  write  letters  on  affairs  of  state  to  Burleigh, 
and  compose  epitaphs  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  English, 
should  be  guilty  of  such  an  act  of  brutality  seems 
improbable :  that  she  should  still  walk  the  scene  of 
the  reported  infamy  seems  more  improbable  still. 

With  the  exception  of  the  members  of  a  certain 
learned  society,  and  a  few  stray  members  of  the 
Episcopal  Bench,  no  people  believe  in  ghosts  in  these 
days,  and  those  who  do,  unlike  Doctor  Johnson, 
pretend  not  to  be  afraid  of  them.  This  Berkshire 
ghost  story  will  therefore  need  some  digesting. 
And  yet  a  singular  discovery  made  so  recently  as 
sixty-seven  years  ago,  seems  to  lend  some  colour  to  a 
tale  which  on  such  windy  nights  as  favour  the  dis- 
cussion of  such  topics  is  the  common  talk  of  village 
ale-benches  for  miles  round  the  countryside.  I  do 
not  know  whether  the  Psychical  Research  Society  has 
investigated  the  original  story,  or  has  probed  the 
recent  discovery  which  seems  to  lend  it  an  air  of 


64  MOATED  HOUSES 

truth.  But  here  is  the  fact,  and  it  is  very  much  at 
their  service.  Sixty-seven  years  ago,  then,  when 
England,  France,  Portugal,  and  Spain  joined  hands 
in  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  and  British  guns  were 
thundering  before  the  walls  of  Acre,  a  quantity  of 
children's  copy-books  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth  were 
discovered  at  Bisham.  The  fact  of  their  discovery 
was  not  in  itself  remarkable,  nor  perhaps  was  the 
fact  that  they  were  found  pushed  into  the  rubble 
between  the  joists  of  the  floor,  as  if  some  one  had  no 
further  need  for  them  and  wanted  to  get  rid  of  them 
in  a  hurry.  It  was  the  condition  of  one  of  the  copy- 
books which  helps  the  ghost  story.  It  suggested  in  no 
uncertain  form  the  motive  for  this  alleged  Elizabethan 
murder.  It  had  clearly  belonged  to  a  child  who 
could  not  write  a  single  line  without  making  a  blot. 
Rarely  has  there  been  seen  such  a  saturnalia  of  ink- 
stains.  Surely  this  is  a  "point"  for  apparitions ! 

The  cause  of  the  ghostly  whiteness  of  the 
Elizabethan  widow's  face,  as  she  looks  down  from  the 
walls  of  the  Bisham  dining-room,  having  been  now 
suggested,  and  Lady  Hoby's  supposed  guilt  pushed 
a  little  more  forward  into  the  light  of  possibility,  it 
becomes  time  to  turn  to  other  pages  of  the  history  of 
her  connection  with  this  house,  and  to  catalogue 
certain  various  virtues  and  characteristics  of  hers 
which  were  real  and  imposing  enough.  But  before  a 
still  lingering  suspicion  gives  place  to  a  more  reluctant 
eulogy,  a  certain  remarkable  trait  in  the  lady's 
character  may  be  noticed — a  trait  not  by  any  means 
necessarily  harmful,  but  most  decidedly  ominous,  and 
largely  tending  to  help  the  rumours  which  have 


BISHAM  65 

gathered    through    the   centuries   about   the  ghostly- 
looking    portrait.       This    Lady    Hoby    (she    was    a 
great    herald)   showed    throughout   her   life   an    un- 
pleasant interest  in  all  things  pertaining  to  death  and 
the  dead.      She  had  a  kind  of  passion  for  funerals. 
Her  pleasure  in  writing  epitaphs  was  a  joy  very  real. 
She  was   always    reading   aloud  a  letter  which  she 
had  received  from   Elizabeth  condoling  with  her  on 
her  husband's  death.     Guests  at  Bisham  came  to  look 
upon    this    reading   almost    in    the    light   of   Family 
Prayers.     They   closed   their   eyes,    sat    down,    and 
listened  or  not  as  the  case  might  be.     Nor  was  this 
continual    reading   of   the    letter   a    sufficient    salve. 
Not   content   with   putting   up    a   tombstone  to  her 
husband,  she  had  to  put  one  up  at  the  same  time  to 
his   deceased   half-brother.     Now   the    funereal   pen 
was   taken   grimly  in  hand.     The  clothing  of  three 
languages  was  required  for  two  epitaphs,  which  she 
took   as    much   glee    in    composing   as  other  people 
would  have  taken  in  writing  epigrams.     The  ordering 
of  pompous  obsequies  was  her  delight.     Nor  was  her 
pleasure    confined    to    arranging    funerals    for   other 
people,  since  just  before  she  died,  she  took  particular 
care   about   the  ordering  of  her  own.     She  wrote  a 
long   letter    in   a    trembling    hand    to    Sir    William 
Dethick,  Garter  King-of-Arms,  asking  what  number 
of  mourners  were  due  to  her  calling,  and  inquiring 
as    to     such    lively    matters    as     the    hearse,     the 
heralds,    and    the    black    hangings    in    the    church. 
This    lifelong    absorption    of     Lady    Hoby    in    all 
things   to    do    with    the   graveyard  adds  a  properly 
suggestive   tinge   to    the    ghost    story.       With    her 
5 


66  MOATED  HOUSES 

strangely  white  face  and  hands,  she  still   dominates 
Bisham. 

She  came  there  as  the  bride  of  Thomas  Hoby  on 
June  the  27th,  1558,  being  the  third  daughter  of  Sir 
Anthony  Cooke  of  Gidea  Hall,  Essex,  and  was  thirty 
years  of  age.  Her  beautiful  new  home  had  recently 
been  rebuilt.  But,  in  its  banqueting  hall,  60  feet  long, 
with  dark  oak  gallery  and  buttery  hatch,  it  associated 
itself  with  a  much  earlier  building.  The  fine  room  in 
question  is  an  enduring  monument  to  Montacute  Earl 
of  Salisbury,  whose  son  fought  at  Poitiers  eighteen 
years  after.  Bisham  was  a  priory  of  Augustine 
canons  in  those  days,  and  the  hero  of  Poitiers  came 
here  to  take  leave  of  some  friends  he  had  among  them, 
previous  to  setting  out  for  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  He 
also  had  a  daughter  who  was  a  nun  in  a  neighbouring 
convent,  and  as  an  additional  encumbrance,  a  squire 
in  his  train,  who  was  in  love  with  the  daughter.  An 
elopement  in  a  boat,  conducted  in  quite  a  Drury  Lane 
melodrama  manner,  was  intercepted  at  Marlow.  The 
fugitive  fair  one  was  sent  back  to  her  convent.  The 

o 

military  lover,  in  an  attempt  to  escape  from  Bisham 
Abbey  tower,  where  he  had  been  imprisoned,  enjoyed 
an  even  worse  experience.  A  rope  broke  as  he  was 
trying  to  lower  himself  from  an  upper  window,  and 
the  fall  which  followed  broke  nearly  every  bone  in 
his  body.  Upon  this,  he  gave  up  matrimonial  designs 
and  became  a  monk.  Quite  a  Berkshire  Abelard  and 
Heloise  episode  !  With  her  tendency  to  brood  upon 
churchyards  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  the  new  bride 
at  Bisham  would  have  listened  eagerly  to  such 
household  stories  as  these. 


BISHAM  69 

Bisham  had  been  once  a  Preceptory  of  the  Knights 
Templar,  and  the  military  genius  of  those  soldier- 
priests  still  survives  in  the  moat  of  their  own  con- 
struction which  surrounds  the  house  and  grounds. 
This  famous  band  of  Crusaders  had  made  Bisham 
one  of  their  headquarters  in  those  monstrous  and 
seldom -studied  days  of  Stephen,  when  men  were 
hung  up  all  over  the  country  by  their  hands  and  feet, 
with  lighted  fires  under  them,  and  David,  King  of 
Scotland,  in  vain  tried  to  pierce  through  the  English 
infantry  which  rallied  doggedly  round  the  ship's  mast 
decorated  with  a  consecrated  wafer,  which  gave  the 
name  to  the  Battle  of  the  Standard.  The  Knights 
Templar  left  Bisham  two  hundred  and  seventy 
years  afterwards,  when  Piers  Gaveston  was  ruling 
England  by  an  extremely  offensive  personal 
influence  over  Edward  the  Second  ;  and  when,  for 
the  alleged  introduction  of  more  of  the  duties  of  the 
hearth  into  those  of  the  cloister  than  befitted  a 
company  of  military  priests,  their  celebrated  order 
was  suppressed.  Lady  Hoby,  whose  knowledge  of 
history  was  as  extensive  as  her  knowledge  of  hatch- 
ments and  funereal  rites,  would  have  relished  such 
a  chapter  of  the  past  as  this.  It  indeed  lay  spread 
before  her  in  the  pavements  and  corridors  of  Bisham, 
and  whispered  its  occult  secrets  in  the  faint  murmurs 
of  the  moat. 

But  Lady  Hoby  was  a  blue  stocking  of  the 
sixteenth  century  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  ; 
she  could  look  elsewhere  for  literature  than  to  the 
storied  walls  of  her  new  home.  Her  husband's  half- 
brother,  Sir  Philip  Hoby  (the  previous  owner  of  the 


70  MOATED  HOUSES 

estate),  had  not  only  acted  as  Ambassador  of  England 
resident  at  the  Court  of  the  great  Emperor  Charles 
the  Fifth,  and  also  received  in  that  capacity  one  of  the 
few  State  papers  issued  during  the  nine  days'  reign  of 
Lady  Jane  Grey,  but  he  had  also  been  described  by 
Lord  Burghley  as  an  amiable  and  cultured  man.  He 
was  furthermore  an  intimate  friend  of  Titian.  (Sir 
Philip,  being  gouty,  used  to  repair  to  Padua  as  well 
as  to  Pau  for  a  cure.)  And  in  a  further  exercise  of 
his  powers  as  a  patron  of  the  Arts  he  procured  for 
Pietro  Aretino  a  gratuity  from  Henry  the  Eighth,  as 
a  reward  for  a  Dedication.  Such  was  the  diplomatic 
and  literary  reputation  of  Lady  Hoby's  half-brother 
by  marriage.  Her  own  husband,  Sir  Thomas  Hoby 
(he  was  knighted  at  Greenwich  seven  years  after  the 
wedding),  shone  perhaps  rather  as  a  diplomat  than  as 
a  friend  of  authors,  and  perhaps  as  a  soldier  more 
than  either  of  the  two.  He  had  no  sooner  been  sent 
as  Ambassador  to  France  than  his  diplomatic  instincts, 
or  more  probably  his  military  ones,  almost  brought 
about  a  rupture  between  that  country  and  his  own. 
When  he  landed  at  Calais  Haven,  in  solemn 
Ambassadorial  state,  a  peccant  though  not  aimless 
soldier  at  the  Town  Gate  proffered  a  new  form  of 
diplomatic  salute  by  shooting  the  English  flag 
through  in  two  places.  Sir  Thomas  Hoby  threw 
diplomacy  into  the  Straits  of  Dover,  and  took  a  very 
high  hand.  Redress  for  the  insult  was  demanded  in 
terms  so  arrogantly  offensive  that  they  might  well 
have  embroiled  two  nations  in  an  endless  and  aimless 
war.  But  truth  will  out,  even  in  a  Diplomatic 
Mission,  and  it  slowly  but  surely  became  evident 


BISHAM  71 

that  the  outraged  Ambassador  was  not  only  intent 
on  an  apology,  but  was  also  possessed  of  a  desire 
to  view  the  town's  new  fortifications.  A  laboured 
expression  of  regret  was  given.  The  permit  to  view 
was  not  granted.  Sir  Thomas  only  got  as  far  as 
Paris  after  this  rebuff.  He  died  there,  on  i3th  July 
1566,  and  was  buried  at  Bisham. 

It  was  on  this  melancholy  occasion  that  Lady 
Hoby  (the  original  of  the  portrait  with  such  strangely 
white  face  and  hands)  gave  full  vent  to  her  fixedly 
funereal  fancies.  She  not  only  instantly  had  her 
husband's  body  brought  over  from  Paris  and  erected 
a  monument  to  him,  but  set  up  one  at  the  same  time 
to  her  deceased  husband's  half-brother,  and  thus 
killed  two  birds,  who  were  dead  already,  with  one 
stone.  The  epitaph  in  three  languages  which  has 
been  referred  to  already,  summarizes  in  the  follow- 
ing couplet  this  funereal  double  event  (English 
version) : — 

"  Give  me,  O  Lord,  a  husband  like  to  Thomas, 
Or  else  restore  me  to  my  husband  Thomas." 

Providence  failing  to  give  a  favourable  reply  to 
either  of  these  two  requests,  Lady  Hoby  took  her 
matrimonial  matters  into  her  two  hands,  and  after 
a  decent  interval  married  Lord  John  Russell.  Her 
literary  instincts,  however,  remained  unimpaired. 
Their  political  bent  shows  itself  in  a  series  of  letters 
written  to  Lord  Burghley  between  the  years  1547  and 
1580:  their  religious  side  shows  itself  so  late  as  the 
year  1605  m  a  translation  from  the  French.  A 
treatise  On  a  way  of  Reconciliation  touching  the 


72  MOATED  HOUSES 

trite  nature  and  substance  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of 
Christ  made  some  stir  in  ecclesiastical  circles.  Lady 
Hoby  published  it  only  four  years  before  she  delivered 
herself  of  those  voluminous  directions  for  her  own 
funeral.  She  was  buried  at  Bisham  on  the  2nd  of 
June  1609. 

But  she  left  her  literary  instincts  behind  her  in 
the  person  of  an  eldest  son.  His  name  was  Edward  : 
he  was  born  at  Bisham  in  1560.  And  as  both  his 
father  and  his  mother  were  diplomatists  in  their 
different  stages  of  life,  he  too  became  something  of 
the  same  kind.  He  did  not,  like  his  father,  and  his 
father's  half-brother,  attain  to  the  dignity  of  an 
accredited  Ambassador  ;  but  it  is  not  certain  that 
he  did  not  work  for  his  country's  welfare  through 
equally  diplomatic  yet  more  secret  means.  In  plain 
words,  dates  suggest  that  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Secret  Service,  and  had  a  grievance  against  the 
remarkable  head  and  originator  of  that  most  memor- 
able organization.  In  the  year  1586,  that  eventful 
year  when  Walsingham's  prearranged  schemes  for 
protecting  England  against  fancied  danger  had 
culminated  in  the  Babington  Conspiracy,  Sir  Edward 
Hoby,  who  was  then  Member  of  Parliament  for 
Queenborough  in  Kent,  had  occasion  to  make  some 
uncomplimentary  remarks  about  the  master  in  the 
mud  of  whose  dark  and  dubious  service  he  had  waded 
up  to  the  neck.  He  wrote  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  who 
had  knighted  him  four  years  before,  informing  her 
that  her  Secretary  of  State  "  had  not  only  bitten  him 
but  had  passed  him  by."  His  remonstrance  must 
have  been  successful,  for  two  years  later  found  him 


BISHAM  73 

one  of  the  Commissioners  appointed  by  the  Queen 
to  report  on  the  preparations  for  the  reception  of  the 
Armada.  Let  us  hope  that  he  had  no  hand  in  supply- 
ing that  sour  beer  which  poisoned  half  our  fleet  on 
that  immortal  occasion.  But  if  there  is  anything  in 
physiognomy,  an  oval-shaped  portrait  of  him,  with 
England's  triumph  over  Spain  in  the  background, 
does  not  inspire  confidence,  though  it  hangs  now  in 
a  Kentish  rectory.  It  suggests  Walsingham  and 
his  devious  delvings.  It  gives  the  idea  of  a  dealer 
who  has  made  something  out  of  a  naval  contract, 
though  Sir  Edward  is  reported  to  have  been  present 
in  person  on  one  of  those  fast  sailing  and  easily 
handled  English  ships  which,  with  the  assistance  of 
fire-ships  and  a  westerly  gale,  brought  about  Spain's 
downfall  and  that  of  Medina  Sidonia. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  by  the  time  James  the  First 
had  come  to  the  throne,  Sir  Edward  Hoby  had  laid 
aside  the  sword,  if  he  had  ever  drawn  it,  for  a  pen 
with  which  he  did  some  quaint  execution.  From 
whatever  source  it  came,  the  literary  leaning 
clung  to  Sir  Edward  Hoby  through  life.  It  brought 
distinguished  guests  to  Bisham,  and  Camden's  name 
may  be  enrolled  on  that  creditable  visitors'  list.  It 
also  inspired  Sir  Edward  to  those  quaint  literary 
efforts  on  his  own  account  which  have  just  been 
referred  to,  and  which  (to  judge  from  their  titles) 
were  not  altogether  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  a 
perfect  Christian  charity.  A  catalogue  of  these 
venomous  outpourings  of  a  diplomatic  mind  is  here 
appended  for  the  common  benefit  of  Christendom  : 
A  letter  to  Mr.  T.  H.  late  Minister,  now  Fugitive 


74  MOATED  HOUSES 

A  Counter-snarle  for  Ishmael Rabshacheh,  a  Cecropian 
Lychaonite.  (This  effort  in  controversy  brought 
about  a  reply,  which  was  perhaps  not  unexpected. 
It  bore  the  title  of  Purgatories  triumphs  over  Hell, 
mauger  the  barkings  of  Cerberius  in  Syre  Edward 
Hobyes  Counter  snarled]  This  rejoinder  might  have 
given  some  of  our  modern  disputants  pause.  It 
would  appear,  after  a  proper  interval  allowed  for 
digestion,  to  have  simply  stimulated  Sir  Edward's 
controversial  activity.  Three  years  was  the  limit 
set  to  his  silence.  Then  A  Curry-Combe  for 
Coxecombs  decorated  London's  bookstalls.  Whether 
this  effort  settled  literary  opponents  is  not  certain  ; 
but  it  seems  to  have  settled  Sir  Edward  Hoby.  He 
died  at  Oueenborough  Castle  in  the  March  of  the  year 
following,  and  was  buried  at  Bisham. 

This  was  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death  and  of 
the  trial  of  the  Earl  and  the  Countess  of  Somerset 
for  their  monstrous  share  in  the  poisoning  of  Sir 
Thomas  Overbury.  What  has  been  finely  described 
as  "the  Masqued  and  Muffled  figures  of  Treachery 
and  Murder "  peep  out  upon  us  from  the  record  of 
those  dark  days.  It  is  a  singular  coincidence  that 
the  last  owner  of  Bisham  with  whom  this  paper  has 
had  to  do  should  have  been  a  personal  favourite  of 
that  James  the  First  on  whose  shoulders  rests  grave 
suspicion  of  the  Overbury  atrocity ;  and  that  this 
Sir  Edward  Hoby's  own  mother's  portrait  still  looks 
down  from  the  Bisham  dining-room  walls,  ghostly, 
spectral,  pale  even  in  portraiture,  with  the  suspicion 
of  murder. 


THE  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth  are  pre- 
served   in  stone  by  this  fine  house,  which  is 
built  in  the  perfect  form  of  an  E,  and  is  ap- 
proached by  an  avenue  of  limes  nearly  a  mile  long. 
Two    bridges    span    the    moat,    and   a   more    than 
ordinarily   picturesque    arrangement    of  gables    and 
chimneys  helps  to  make  it  stand  out  from  other  moated 
houses  of  the  period  as  an  almost  perfect  specimen. 

The  house,  as  it  now  stands,  nearly  untouched,  was 
built  by  the  last  but  one  of  the  well-known  family  of 
Cloptons  on  the  site  of  an  earlier  structure  which  had 
been  in  their  possession  since  the  fourteenth  century. 
So  here  at  Kentwell,  as  in  so  many  places  of  the  kind, 
the  moat  remains  the  indisputable  record  of  the  first 
foundation  ;  still  tries  to  murmur,  in  tones  which  can- 
not be  fully  heard,  the  earlier  and  now  half-forgotten 
episodes  of  the  house's  story.  The  male  line  of  the 
Cloptons  became  extinct  in  1618.  This  was  the  date 
also  of  the  more  lamentable  extinction  of  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  and,  perhaps  as  a  punishment  for  that  piece 
of  Jacobean  perfidy,  the  outbreak  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  To  return  to  the  Cloptons,  however.  The  ex- 
tinction of  their  male  line  was  not  a  disaster  altogether 

75 


76  MOATED  HOUSES 

irretrievable  either  to  their  family  or  to  their  moated 
house.  An  heiress  remained  to  adorn  the  scene. 
And  this  heiress,  of  her  own  free  will  and  inclination, 
enriched  the  history  of  Kentwell  with  a  very  whimsi- 
cal character.  Marriage  was  the  method  by  which 
this  desirable  end  was  attained — and  a  marriage  of  a 
very  precocious  variety,  too.  At  the  mature  age  of 
fourteen,  Anne  gave  her  hand  and  heart,  and  Kent- 
well  Hall  with  them,  to  Sir  Simon  D'Ewes.  The 
delightful  flavour  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novel  is 
caught  again  after  study  of  the  record  of  this  seven- 
teenth-century Antiquary.  He  was  of  Low  Country 
descent — so  that  though  he  married  an  heiress  only 
fourteen  years  old,  slow  blood  may  be  supposed  to 
have  trickled  through  his  veins.  This  did  not  prevent 
him  from  nearly  losing  his  life  by  being  drawn  up  in 
a  bell  that  hung  in  the  gateway  of  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge.  He  was  no  doubt  on  some  scientific  in- 
quiry intent,  when  this  accident  befell  him.  It  would  be 
uncharitable  to  suggest  that  this  aerial  expedition  was 
the  result  of  too  much  wine,  since  Simon  apart  from  the 
ordinary  University  course  was  occupying  himself  with 
devout  and  dogmatically  religious  studies.  The  Law 
now  leaned  over  our  student's  shoulder,  with  her  quaint 
and  so  often  delusive  whispers,  and  he,  in  a  half- 
hearted manner,  answered  her  call,  being  entered  at 
the  Bar  the  year  before  the  first  newspaper  was  issued 
in  England.  Having  a  large  private  income,  how- 
ever, he  soon  saw  no  point,  legal  or  otherwise,  in 
waiting  for  briefs.  Kentwell  Hall,  the  mile  of  lime 
avenue,  and  an  extremely  young  and  rich  wife  wait- 
ing at  the  other  end  of  it,  to  say  nothing  of  a  daily 


%  ,/J^  »\  J^f^'^- •;£">•?  ~  -  -  '7-  -   • 
P^-^r^TSr^^i  ^*     •'  f"  - 

i«  ^MhSfe*;  -•  : 


Dorme 


JCENTWELL   HALL 


KENTWELL  HALL  79 

and  indefatigable  research  into  ancient  records,  solaced 
him  for  the  lack  of  those  legal  honours  which^had  yet 
been,  as  will  be  presently  shown,  the  sole  aim  and 
the  sole  reward  of  a  previous  owner  of  the  house.  Sir 
Simon,  safely  entrenched  in  his  Kentwell  sanctum, 
now  allowed  his  antiquarian  tastes  to  turn  into  a  com- 
plete hobby.  This  hobby  he  rode  so  furiously  that  he 
probably  neglected  that  young  wife  whose  fortune 
had  given  him  the  chance  of  indulging  it.  Anne  died 
I  suggest  of  ennui.  But  the  Antiquary  continued  his 
untiring  research,  till  he  quite  accidentally  discovered 
.that  something  was  missing  from  the  comfort  of  his 
home  surroundings  ;  upon  which  discovery,  he  incon- 
tinently married  again.  His  second  wife  was  the 
daughter  of  Sir  H.  Willoughby  of  Derby,  and  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  she  did  not  bring  something 
tangible  to  Kentwell  with  her,  from  the  Derby  Bank. 
Sir  Simon  looked  after  £  s.  d.  almost  as  closely  as 
he  looked  after  other  Black  Letters.  But  he  was 
soon  a  widower  again.  Sir  Simon  himself  died  in 
the  stirring  times  of  Cromwell's  campaign  in  Scotland. 
His  second  wife,  whose  name  was  Elizabeth,  died  in 
quieter  surroundings.  At  Kentwell,  at  all  events, 
stirring  experiences  had  not  been  the  poor  lady's  lot ! 

Neither  the  stress  of  public  events  nor  the  loss  of 
two  wives,  perishing  slowly  of  ennui  before  his  eyes, 
moved  Sir  Simon  in  the  least.  He  still  retained  his 
equanimity — and  his  horn  spectacles,  and  the  only 
thing  that  he  showed  the  least  solicitude  about  at  all, 
was  the  fate  of  that  scattered  collection  of  antiquarian 
papers  the  compilation  of  which  had  killed  two  wives, 
engrossed  his  own  life,  and  had  been  written  entirely 


go  MOATED  HOUSES 

at  random.  He  gravely  desired,  with  the  assistance 
of  the  local  lawyer  from  Ipswich,  that  these  frag- 
ments should  be  preserved  entire,  and  should  be 
made  accessible  to  all  lovers  of  learning  who  also  had 
a  liking  for  virtue  and  integrity.  Then  he  took  to 
politics. 

In  this  new  sphere  of  activity  he  figured  as  a 
Roundhead,  though  he  was  never  known  to  have 
opened  his  lantern  jaws  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  was  probably  thinking  during  the  most  strenuous 
moments  ever  known  at  Westminster,  of  that  precious 
mass  of  antiquarian  lore  in  safe  storage  at  Kent  well. 
When  he  spoke  at  all  in  private  to  his  fellow-members, 
his  talk  would  not  have  been  of  Laud  and  Wentworth, 
or  of  Ship  Money,  or  of  the  Grand  Remonstrance,  or 
kindred  ephemeral  matters,  but  of  heraldic  bearings, 
his  avenue  of  limes  at  Kentwell,  and  of  the  probable 
form  of  that  earlier  house,  whose  walls  the  present 
moat  washed,  so  far  back  as  the  fourteenth  century. 
It  is  said,  however,  that  he  deplored  the  extreme 
measures  taken  against  King  Charles  the  First,  and 
this  very  antiquarian  attitude  to  prevailing  views 
probably  lost  him  his  seat.  It  also  very  likely  short- 
ened his  life.  He  was  physically,  and  in  the  strictest 
sense  of  the  word,  thrown  out  of  the  House  of 
Commons  by  Colonel  Pride  (in  the  application  of  that 
officer's  well-known  Purge),  and  the  remedy  proved 
too  strong  for  him.  He  died  at  all  events  two  short 
years  after. 

This  departed  Dryasdust's  ruminations  as  to  the 
appearance  of  the  earlier  Kentwell  Hall,  on  whose 
ruins  the  present  perfect  specimen  of  an  Elizabethan 


KENTWELL  HALL  81 

house  was  built  (with  laboured  dissertations  on 
which  Sir  Simon  D'Ewes  would  have  bored  his 
fellow  Members  of  Parliament  at  Westminster  for 
hours  over  tea  on  the  Terrace,  if  either  tea  or  Terrace 
had  at  the  moment  been  in  existence — which  they 
were  not),  may  now  occupy  our  attention,  and  possibly 
not  without  amusement.  In  search  of  this  extremely 
desirable  aid  to  life  as  it  is  now  lived,  we  shall  have 
to  go  so  far  back  into  the  nation's  history  as  1359, 
when  Edward  the  Third  was  at  the  height  of 
his  popularity,  when  Chaucer  and  Langland  were 
writing,  Wiclif  was  preaching  Socialism,  and  Eng- 
land was  only  three  years  off  the  tremendous  and  vic- 
torious struggle  at  Poitiers.  At  that  time  Walter  de 
Clopton  was  Commissioner  of  Array  for  the  County 
of  Suffolk.  Without  the  assistance  of  Sir  Simon 
D'Ewes,  we  may  picture  what  sort  of  place  was  the 
Kentwell  Hall  in  those  days  which  Walter  de 
Clopton  and  his  heirs  after  him  lived  in.  The  moat 
still  existing  is  its  only  memory.  This  probably 
washed  the  four  walls  of  an  Early  English  building 
in  the  form  of  a  parallelogram  consisting  of  a  vaulted 
ground  floor,  a  large  room  above  it,  and  another  room 
over  the  porch,  used  as  an  oratory.  The  vaulted 
ground  floor,  or  the  great  hall,  could  be  subdivided 
into  any  number  of  compartments  if  necessary  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  screening  them  off  with  wooden 
partitions,  or  with  what  was  the  cheapest  contemporary 
substitute  for  tapestry.  But  after  the  time  appor- 
tioned for  sleep,  the  room  would  have  been  cleared 
for  a  more  profitable  employment.  It  would,  indeed, 
have  been  cleared  for  duties  which  were  in  those  days 


82  MOATED  HOUSES 

part  and  parcel  of  an  English  country  gentleman's  life. 
For  the  hall  of  the  Manor  was  in  effect  the  local 
Court  of  Justice.  The  Lord  of  the  Manor,  at  fixed 
times,  lethargically  appointed,  sat  at  his  hall  table 
as  Judge,  or  as  Receiver-General  at  the  Receipt  of 
Customs.  Though  he  was  probably  propped  as  up- 
right as  was  possible,  in  consideration  of  overnight 
jollifications,  in  an  arm-chair,  he  was  really  sitting  upon 
the  Bench.  To  him  were  presently  introduced,  or 
dragged,  aspirants  who  desired  to  pay  homage,  un- 
fortunates who  owed  fines,  villagers  who  had  to  be 
enrolled  in  their  tithings.  Criminal  jurisdiction  was 
also  meted  out,  and  with  sudden  dispatch,  in  this 
temporary  Law  Court,  devoted  usually  to  prolonged 
and  riotous  revels.  As  Walter  de  Clopton  was 
listening  inattentively  to  what  a  prisoner  had  to  say 
on  his  own  behalf,  he  could  see  through  the  narrow 
window,  or  the  open  hall  door,  the  gallows  set  up 
immediately  opposite  the  main  entrance,  casting  its 
sinister  shadow  on  the  moat.  Wa^es  were  to  be 

o 

earned  for  keeping  this  useful  implement  of  commerce 
in  good  repair.  I  read  that  in  the  eighth  year  of 
Edward  the  Fourth  a  certain  William  Braxteijn  "  held 
certain  lands  by  the  service  of  finding  a  ladder  for  his 
lord's  gallows."  These  were  rough  and  ready  days  in 
an  England  already  engaged  in  our  modern  struggle 
between  Capital  and  Labour  which  most  of  our 
politicians  seem  to  think  new,  and  with  the  ravages 
of  the  Black  Death  still  a  recent  and  terrible  memory 
in  the  country.  The  tempers  even  of  magistrates 
were  not  in  the  smoothest  of  conditions,  and  with  the 
gallows  beckoning  alluringly  outside  the  hall  door, 


KENTWELL  HALL  85 

"Tie  up!  tie  up!"  was  the  condensed  form  that  a 
judgment  took  in  these  improvized  country  Courts, 
especially  when  the  weather  was  sultry.  There  was 
no  appeal  in  that  Hall  of  Justice  in  which  Walter  de 
Clopton  and  judges  of  his  kidney  sat ;  nor  did  the 
public  hangman  have  to  travel  from  one  end  of 
England  to  the  other  to  give  the  final  effect  to  his 
decrees.  A  local  artist  was  always  on  the  spot. 
People  had  just  time  to  rattle  off  a  leash  of  prayers  ; 
and  their  last  view  of  Kentwell  Hall  had  been  taken. 
This  formality  over,  the  Hall  of  Justice  would  be 
turned  into  the  dining-room  again,  and  the  judges, 
whether  they  were  just  or  unjust,  sit  down  to  dinner. 
The  Peace  of  Bretigny  would  very  likely  be  the 
subject  of  talk  over  this  meal  ;  or  the  disastrous 
third  campaign  with  France,  with  its  loss  of  French 
territory  ;  or  the  declining  health  of  the  King. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  owner 
of  Kentwell  Hall,  as  it  then  stood,  exercised  his 
judicial  abilities  only,  as  above  described,  in  his  own 
dining-room.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  one  of  the 
rising  lawyers  of  his  day,  and  before  Richard  the 
Second  had  been  a  year  on  the  throne,  he  took 
the  degree  of  King's  Serjeant.  While  John  Bull  was 
talking  Socialism  on  commons  as  windy  as  himself, 
and  Wat  Tyler  was  preparing  to  put  these  precepts 
into  hard  blows,  and  peasants  were  revolting  all  over 
the  country,  and  roaring  out  for  mediaeval  Old  Age 
Pensions,  to  say  nothing  of  an  Eight  Hours  Bill,  the 
master  of  Kentwell  rose  steadily  in  his  profession. 
The  year  1383  saw  him  taking  the  Assizes  at  Hert- 
ford— an  occasion  on  which  the  Monastery  of  St. 


86  MOATED  HOUSES 

• 

Albans  appeared  in  the  list  of  cases  to  be  tried.  This 
one  was  probably  tried  as  cases  are  now.  But  there 
were  no  reporters  in  those  days  ready  to  spread  a 
sensation,  and  the  voice  of  the  Star  man  was  not 
heard  in  the  land.  This  St.  Albans  scandal  sur- 
mounted without  the  public  knowing  anything  about 
the  facts  of  the  case,  our  Judge's  road  to  preferment 
was  easy ;  and  at  the  very  time  when  the  Lords 
Appellant  were  attacking  Richard  the  Second's  friends 
in  what  was  called  the  Merciless  Parliament  (surely 
a  prototype  of  our  own  august  body  now  at  West- 
minster assembled),  Walter  de  Clopton  was  made 
Lord-Chief-Justice  of  England.  In  this  exalted 
position,  his  career,  I  regret  to  say,  discovers  a 
certain  suggestion  of  dubiety.  To  put  it  in  plain 
words,  it  seems  to  suggest  that  in  the  long  succession 
of  intrigues  which  paved  the  way  to  Richard's  deposi- 
tion and  Bolingbroke's  final  triumph,  the  Lord-Chief- 
Justice  of  England  was  not  only  sitting  on  the  Bench, 
but  was  also  sitting  on  the  fence.  He  apparently 
slipped  off  on  the  right  side  of  this  novel  seat  of 
Justice  just  in  time.  He  had  at  all  events  succeeded 
in  not  forfeiting  the  favour  of  the  new  King,  Henry  the 
Fourth.  For  in  the  first  Parliament  summoned  by  that 
usurping  King  we  find  him  appointed  to  inquire  into 
the  conduct  of  one  of  his  brother-judges  who  had 
been  less  fortunate  and  less  adroit.  To  illustrate  the 
shifty  and  underground  currents  of  the  times,  the  Lord- 
Chief-Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas  was  suspected  of 
carrying  letters  between  the  late  King  and  the  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  then  in  prison  at  Calais.  Legal  acumen 
somewhat  tardily  coming  to  his  rescue,  the  Lord- 


KENTWELL  HALL  87 

Chief- Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas  acknowledged 
to  carrying  the  said  letter,  but  loudly  proclaimed  that 
he  was  totally  ignorant  of  what  was  inside  it.  It  is 
possible  that  Walter  de  Clopton  might  have  reminded 
him  if  the  moment  had  been  favourable — but  it 
wasn't,  so  there  the  matter  dropped.  This  suggestion 
may  seem  unfair  to  the  dignity  of  the  first  Judge  in 
the  land  and  the  owner  of  Kentwell.  But  that,  at  an 
earlier  period  in  his  career,  he  was  not  averse  to 
fishing  for  what  could  be  picked  up  in  waters  however 
muddy  is  proved  by  the  fact,  that  before  he  attained 
to  the  dignity  of  King's  Serjeant,  he,  and  his  sons 
Walter  and  Edmund,  were  forbidden  to  leave  the 
country  on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  their  possessions. 
Imagine  the  ruminations  at  Kentwell  during  this 
forced  stay  in  that  fine  country  seat. 

Having  survived  this  trouble,  however,  and  plenty 
of  judicial  ones  as  well ;  having  seen  the  fall  of  one 
King  and  probably  helped  at  it,  and  the  accession  of 
another  to  whom  he  also  lent  his  aid,  Walter  de 
Clopton  fell  himself  into  another  mood — this  time  a 
religious  one.  He  first  of  all,  however,  shook  off  his 
judicial  robes,  and  retired  from  office,  remembering 
Lot's  wife,  and  taking  care  not  to  look  behind  him  ; 
and  repaired  to  the  Monastery  of  the  Grey  Friars  in 
Norwich.  This  act,  however  pious  it  may  at  first 
sight  seem,  suggests  the  latent  possibility  of  his  havino- 
had  to  seek  sanctuary.  The  date  of  his  death  is  un- 
certain, though  some  experts  place  it  as  late  as  only 
two  years  before  the  death  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 

This  brief  sketch  of  two  of  the  inmates  of  Kentwell 
Hall  dower  the  place  with  a  self-conscious  Antiquary 


88  MOATED  HOUSES 

and  an  unjust  Judge,  and  we  only  hope  that  no  in- 
justice has  been  done  to  the  memory  of  either.  One 
lived  in  the  Early  English  Kentwell ;  the  other  in  the 
present  perfect  specimen  of  Elizabethan  architecture  ; 
and  they  may  well  have  joined  destinies  when,  after 
having  surmounted  so  many  worldly  difficulties,  they 
had  to  surmount  a  further  and  a  final  one,  and  cross, 
not  the  Kentwell  Moat,  but  the  Stygian  River. 
Perhaps  in  that  dingy  region  they  have  struck  up 
an  acquaintanceship  on  the  grounds  of  a  successive 
ownership  of  Kentwell !  Perhaps,  under  the  pale 
glimpses  of  the  moon,  fraternize,  arm  in  arm,  under 
that  fine  avenue  of  limes  which  remains  one  of  the 
greatest  glories  of  their  joint  Suffolk  home  ! 


VI 

GREAT  TANGLEY 

THE  sinister  eyes  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Angevins,  it  is  said,  once  looked  into  the 
broad  moat  which  surrounds  this  beautiful 
Surrey  house,  and  which  in  summer  is  filled  with 
water  lilies.  For  the  one  rumour  more  fixed  than  any 
other  about  Tangley,  is  that  an  earlier  building  whose 
walls  the  present  moat  washed  was  used  by  King 
John  as  one  of  his  hunting  lodges.  The  Chiddingfold 
hounds  now  look  for  foxes  in  the  dense  woodlands, 
which  in  John's  time  were  still  denser,  and  in 
which  the  ablest  of  the  Plantagenets  looked  for 
nobler  sort  of  game.  In  those  days  a  huge  forest 
stretched  from  Tangley  nearly  to  the  foot  of  the 
South  Downs.  Small  villages  stood  here  and  there 
in  the  clearances,  each  adorned  with  a  Norman 
church,  and  with  what  was  more  important  it  is 
to  be  feared  in  the  then  Kings  of  England's  eyes, 
a  Maison  du  Roi  as  it  was  called,  under  whose 
roof  royal  limbs  might  repose  themselves  after 
the  joys  and  perils  of  the  chase.  It  is  possible 
that  Great  Tangley  was  in  its  original  form  one  of 
these  royal  hunting  boxes.  But  the  history  of  the 


90  MOATED  HOUSES 

house  is  wrapped  in  an  unpleasing  uncertainty. 
"  King  John  once  lived  here  "  is  all  that  can  be  got 
from  local  augurs.  That  fact  is  firmly  fixed  in  the 
brain  of  the  countryside.  And  there  the  matter 
rests. 

Whether  King  John  was  ever  at  Great  Tangley 
or  no,  his  baleful  glance  could  never  have  rested  on 
the  present  house,  which  must  have  been  built  several 
centuries  after  the  wicked  Plantagenet  had  retired 
from  this  world's  labours,  in  the  words  of  a  dreadful 
contemporary  comment,  "  to  defile  Hell  with  his 
presence."  Nothing  indeed  in  Tangley,  or  its  quiet 
and  beautiful  setting,  suggests  that  crowned  monster 
who  began  his  career  by  plucking  out  the  beards  of 
the  Irish  chieftains  who  came  to  own  him  as  their 
lord,  and  whose  ingratitude  and  perfidy  put  the  last 
nail  into  his  father's  coffin.  The  picturesque  gables, 
the  trim  lawns,  the  well-ordered  gardens,  the  broad 
and  brimming  moat  of  Great  Tangley  Manor  breathe 
not  the  faintest  memory  of  the  man  who  spent  his 
spare  time  in  designing  punishments  (the  Peine  fort 
et  dure,  or  crushing  people  to  death  by  the  weight 
of  a  stone,  was  one  of  his  sprightly  inventions) ; 
who  had  such  a  superstitious  dread  of  the  number 
Nine  that  when  he  had  killed  eight  boars  or 
stags  nothing  would  induce  him  to  go  on  hunting ; 
and  who  perished  in  a  struggle  of  despair  against 
English  freedom,  with  the  assistance  of  a  poisoned 
apple  administered  by  a  raving  monk.  Nothing 
about  Great  Tangley  suggests  a  note  of  these 
historic  horrors.  The  mere  mention  of  medie- 
valism seems  out  of  place  under  the  shadow  of 


Y  VW  •>      •= 


GREAT  TANGLEY  93 

this  beautiful  Surrey  home.  No  tyrant  surely  can 
ever  have  sheltered  here.  The  moat's  restful  murmur 
would  have  interrupted  the  calm  flow  of  his  murder- 
ous thoughts  ;  the  water  lilies  swaying  on  the  moat's 
surface  would  have  been  no  inspiration  to  deeds 
for  whose  modern  parallel  the  Newgate  Calendar 
must  be  consulted.  What  have  these  smooth  lawns 
and  ordered  gardens  laughing  with  a  profusion  of 
summer  bloom  to  do  with  a  man  who  starved  children 
to  death,  and  tore  Jews'  teeth  out  of  their  heads  till 
they  gave  him  what  money  he  wanted  ?  Nothing, 
surely.  There  is  a  legend  which,  legend  though  it 
is,  should  not  perhaps  be  overlooked,  that  it  was  at 
Tangley  that  King  John  planned  that  campaign  in 
France  which  had  for  its  object  the  relief  of  Chateau 
Gaillard.  I  suggest  that  if  he  was  ever  at  Tangley 
at  all,  he  was  there  after  one  of  his  subjects'  wives. 
Let  his  sinister  presence  be  banished  from  this  serene 
spot ! 

Let  us  seek  some  association  more  in  harmony 
with  the  place. 

One  is  forthcoming,  and  with  much  better  evidence 
in  support  of  it  than  ever  King  John  in  his  most 
judicial  moods  suppressed,  in  the  person  of  a  gentle- 
man, a  scholar,  and  a  man  of  letters.  I  have  been  told 
that  John  Evelyn  was  once  the  owner  of  Great 
Tangley,  and  though  I  have  found  no  evidence  to 
support  the  statement  I  am  glad  to  believe  it. 
This  moated  house  would  have  been  an  ideal 
home  for  the  pensive,  religious,  refined  chronicler 
of  the  roaring  days  of  Charles  the  Second, 
though  he  had  a  beautiful  and  much  larger  home 


94  MOATED  HOUSES 

at  Wotton,  not  moated,  and  not  many  miles  away. 
From  Wotton  most  of  John  Evelyn's  letters  were 
written,  and  also  the  greater  part  of  his  Diary. 
This  splendid  country  seat  is  in  the  hands  of  his 
descendants  still,  who  have  lived  there  in  an  un- 
broken succession  for  many  hundreds  of  years.  I 
suspect  that  John  Evelyn,  often  as  he  was  at  Great 
Tangley,  was  there  as  an  honoured  and  much- 
sought-after  guest.  A  stroll  at  sunset  by  the  side 
of  the  moat  would  have  calmed  those  feelings  of 
indignation  at  the  unblushing  licence  of  the  times 
which  make  themselves  more  poignantly  felt  after 
each  reperusal  of  his  Diary.  The  bacchanalian  roars 
of  Charles  the  Second's  shameless  courtiers  jarred  on 
that  fine  spirit.  The  atmosphere  of  Whitehall  was 
no  air  for  him  to  breathe  ;  and  the  melancholy  feeling 
that  his  country  was  rushing  through  licence  to  ruin, 
no  doubt  often  found  poignant  and  apt  expression 
under  the  hospitable  gables  of  Great  Tangley.  One 
of  his  visits  to  this  Surrey  moated  house  must  at 
all  events  have  brought  about  some  stirring  talk, 
when  the  ladies  had  left  the  dining-table,  and  the 
splendid  mahogany  had  bared  its  shining  face,  and 
the  wine  had  been  set  before  the  country  gentlemen 
present,  who  were  eager  for  the  latest  news  from 
London  and  knew  themselves  to  be  in  the  company 
of  one  who  could  retail  it. 

I  have  traced  John  Evelyn  to  Great  Tangley 
Manor  at  a  date  immediately  succeeding  the  death 
of  Charles  the  Second.  That  unexpected  event  had 
given  the  whole  country  pause.  No  catastrophe  had 
been  less  expected ;  for  the  King,  who  had  never  in 


GREAT  TANGLEY  95 

our  modern  acceptation  of  the  term  ceased  living  as 
hard  as  he  could  ever  since  he  had  come  to  the  throne, 
had  lately  if  possible  been  living  harder,  and  looked, 
to  people  who  had  seen  him  feeding  his  ducks  and 
sauntering  in  St.  James's  with  a  small  pack  of  his  pet 
spaniels  at  his  heels,  as  if  he  would  live  for  ever. 
But  the  Pale  Horseman  had  called  at  Whitehall 
very  suddenly.  The  nation,  who  with  all  his  faults 
loved  its  witty,  able,  dissolute,  fearless  King,  and 
England,  who  had  metaphorically  speaking  been 
"  holding  both  her  sides  "  for  twenty-five  years,  ceased 
laughing  when  Death  touched  Charles  on  the 
shoulder.  Nothing  indeed,  from  a  worldly  point  of 
view,  could  have  been  more  untimely  for  "Old 
Rowley  "  than  that  unexpected  summons.  By  a  series 
of  diplomatic  manoeuvres,  which  have  never  had 
sufficient  credit  given  to  them,  he  had  succeeded  in 
hoodwinking  his  Ministers  and  his  people  without 
losing  the  affection  of  either  of  them  :  a  pension  from 
the  King  of  France  was  recondite  in  his  pocket :  he 
had  a  standing  army  of  9000  men  at  his  command 
in  England,  as  well  as  six  regiments  abroad  :  his 
clergy  were  running  about  all  over  England  preaching 
Passive  Obedience  as  a  duty  :  Charles  in  fact  was 
an  absolute  King.  And  then  that  Greater  King 
had  stepped  in  so  unexpectedly,  and  made  the  long 
succession  of  artful  scheming  worthless  in  a  few 
hours.  Apoplexy  put  a  sudden  stop  to  the  triumph 
of  this  royal  politician. 

It  was  on  this  event,  so  startling,  so  dramatic  in 
its  suddenness  and  in  its  far-reaching  results,  that 
John  Evelyn  would  have  discoursed  in  the  dining- 


96  MOATED  HOUSES 

room  at  Great  Tangley  over  the  walnuts  and  the 
wine.  The  scholar,  the  antiquarian  and  diarist,  had 
been  about  the  precincts  of  Whitehall  when  this 
august  disaster  happened.  Death,  as  he  so  swiftly 
entered  that  lordly  pleasure-house,  must  have  brushed 
the  meditative  diarist  with  those  invisible  robes 
which  hid  a  dread  presence  so  little  suspected. 
There  was  little  thought  of  the  end  of  all  things 
in  the  long  gallery  of  the  Palace  on  the  Sunday 
evening  before  the  King's  seizure.  Evelyn  had 
been  there  in  person,  had  watched  with  grave 
face  the  unbridled  junketings  of  that  courtly 
assembly,  who  had  no  idea  of  Sunday  observance, 
and  as  little  thought  for  the  morrow.  He 
would  have  described  that  splendid,  reckless,  and 
voluptuous  scene  to  eager  listeners  at  the  Tangley 
mahogany.  The  sound  of  lutes  and  viols  accom- 
panying the  clash  of  gold  on  the  ombre  tables  ! 
Wine  poured  out  like  water  from  priceless  flagons 
by  black  pages  dressed  in  Eastern  splendour !  Roars 
of  laughter  succeed  each  toast  from  which  every 
element  of  decency  is  conspicuously  absent.  Gor- 
geously dressed  beauties  vie  with  gallants  equally 
splendid  in  bandying  this  dubious  talk.  A  vision 
of  scent  and  satin  and  diamonds  and  flushed  faces 
of  beautiful  women  bending  over  the  wine-bowl  or 
the  card-table,  desperately  intent  on  either  duty,  with 
handsome  courtiers  leaning  familiarly  over  them  and 
whispering  the  best  moment  to  cheat  or  the  time 
and  place  for  the  next  assignation.  Spaniels 
of  King  Charles  breed  running  all  over  the  Palace 
floor  and  turning  its  polished  service  into  a  play- 


GREAT  TANGLEY  97 

ground.  Finally,  in  the  centre  of  this  scene  of 
splendour  and  riot,  Charles  himself  lolling  back 
in  his  chair.  On  the  table  before  him  a  great 
heap  of  gold.  Three  favourite  sultanas  of  the 
Court,  Barbara  Palmer  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  and  Hortensia  Mancini 
Duchess  of  Mazarin,  divide  their  ardent  glances 
between  this  heaped-up  gold  and  their  royal  master, 
while  a  handsome  French  page  who  had  already 
made  a  small  fortune  by  his  vocal  performances 
warbles  an  amorous  ditty.  The  light  falling 
through  the  splendid  stained-glass  window  above 
shows  up  "Old  Rowley"  well — his  sallow,  hard- 
lined  face  framed  in  a  tremendous  black  curled  wig. 
Even  then  he  does  not  feel  quite  well.  By  and  by 
he  will  complain  that  he  has  no  appetite  for  supper. 
Meanwhile  riot  and  pleasure  roam  unrestrained 
through  Whitehall  on  this  Sunday  afternoon.  The 
next  morning  the  stroke  fell. 

Evelyn  would  have  presented  some  such  picture 
as  this  to  his  honest  Surrey  neighbours,  who  listened 
to  it  with  mouths  so  agape  that  they  were  unable  to 
swallow  their  wine.  The  fatal  morrow's  events  would 
then  have  been  set  forth  as  a  foil  to  all  this  irreligious 
splendour,  and  the  grave  master  of  Wotton  would  not 
have  let  the  opportunity  pass  of  fixing  a  moral  to  this 
next  sketch  of  Court  life.  Slowly  sipping  a  choice 
vintage  and  letting  his  calm  eye  rest  on  the  February 
sunset  streaming  through  Great  Tangley's  dining- 
room  windows,  and  turning  the  moat  to  its  own  rich 
colour,  he  would  speak  with  an  added  solemnity  of 
those  dire  and  retributive  events  which  befell. 
7 


98  MOATED  HOUSES 

Sabbath-breakers,  if  any  sat  round  the  dinner-table, 
trembled  in  their  shoes  and  felt  a  good  dinner  dis- 
aoreeing  with  them,  as  Evelyn  in  measured  tones, 
not  altogether  unbefitting  a  pulpit,  detailed  the  tragic 
events  which  followed  on  this  shameless  desecration 
of  the  Lord's  Day.  Charles  rising  from  his  bed  black 
in  the  face  and  speechless  :  his  determined  but  fruitless 
attempt  to  dress  himself:  the  hurried  arrival  of  the 
Court  physicians,  not  feeling  themselves  as  they  could 
wish  to,  and  all  divided  as  to  the  symptoms  of  the 
royal  invalid :  the  prescriptions,  the  potions,  the 
antidotes  (for  poison,  as  was  always  in  those  days 
associated  with  a  case  of  this  kind) :  finally  the 
abominable  charm,  culled  it  would  seem  from  the 
lowest  depths  of  the  witches'  cauldron,  stuffed  into 
the  mouth  of  the  royal  patient,  who  retained  his 
urbanity  throughout  all  these  aimless  inflictions,  and 
who  as  soon  as  he  could  speak  expressed  his  regret 
that  he  was  such  an  unconscionable  time  dying. 
Evelyn  would  have  had  all  these  details  at  first  hand. 
He  would  have  told,  too,  of  the  guilty  favourite  hanging 
over  the  bed  of  her  insensible  lover :  of  her  being 
driven  from  the  room  by  those  who  had  a  legitimate 
right  to  be  present :  of  her  lonely  agonies  of  grief 
in  those  splendid  apartments  purchased  by  her  own 
shame.  Waiting  about  Whitehall  as  he  no  doubt 
was,  he  might  have  caught  sight  of  the  disguised 
priest  being  ushered  up  those  private  stairs,  which  had 
been  devoted  but  the  day  before  to  a  very  different 
purpose,  and  had  echoed  to  a  widely  different  tread. 
The  speaker  had  a  good  subject  to  discourse  upon. 
WTe  may  be  sure  that  he  drove  its  moral  home. 


GREAT  TANGLEY  99 

The  February  of  1685  was  a  vision  of  spring 
in  winter.  The  balminess  of  the  evening  would 
have  invited  Evelyn's  congregation  into  the  garden 
of  the  house  to  watch  the  last  rays  of  the  sunset, 
and  to  recover  themselves  respectively  from  the 
wine  which  had  heated  their  brains  and  from  a 
discourse  which  had  chilled  them  to  the  marrow. 
Tobacco  fumes  would  soon  be  seen  rising  in 
the  still  air.  Whispered  opinions  were  hazarded 
that  death  came  when  one  least  looked  for  it,  and 
that  apoplexy  was  a  plaguy  awkward  thing. 
Was  it  apoplexy  ?  Was  it  poison  ?  The  whole 
thing  was  very  uncomfortable.  Then  silence  fell  un- 
broken save  by  perturbed  pipe-puffings.  No  one 
looked  and  admired  the  serene  beauty  of  the  old 
house,  its  fine  black-and-white  work  growing  indistinct 
under  the  oncoming  twilight :  its  towering  gables 
alone  standing  out  clear  in  the  pale  February  sky. 
The  scared  company  in  the  garden  smoked  their 
pipes  in  silence,  and  wondered  what  the  new  King 
would  do. 

Evelyn  objected  strongly  to  tobacco,  and  he  was 
also  afflicted  with  a  nervous  dislike  to  the  society  of 
ladies.  He  probably  therefore  neither  joined  the 
company  in  the  garden  nor  the  ladies  in  the  drawing- 
room  ;  but  finding  his  own  thoughts  the  better 
company  of  the  two,  enjoyed  them  for  a  quiet  half- 
hour  at  the  dining-room's  open  window,  meditating 
the  great  and  grave  events  he  had  lately  discussed, 
and  secretly  enjoying  the  discomfiture  which  had  been 
occasioned  by  the  recital.  One  can  picture  his  pale, 
refined,  and  scholarly  face  framed  by  the  window  and 


ioo  MOATED  HOUSES 

shown  up  by  the  last  rays  of  the  twilight.  His  calm 
gaze  falls  upon  Great  Tangley's  moat.  It  is  more  in 
keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  place  than  the  fabled 
and  baleful  glance  of  the  wickedest  of  the  Planta- 
genets. 


. 


MORETON     HALL 


1540 

THIS  is  the  house  of  inscriptions.  It  is  at  the 
same  time  the  finest  specimen  of  black-and- 
white  work  in  the  country.  In  spite  of  this 
last  advertisement  for  a  fame  which  is  not  needed, 
the  first-mentioned  characteristic  of  the  place  calls  for 
special  comment,  particularly  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  house  is  frequently  shown  to  visitors  for  an  entire 
summer  without  any  of  the  said  inscriptions  being  for 
a  moment  noticed.  And  yet,  in  a  handwriting  carved 
in  English  oak,  they  will  remain,  as  long  as  the  house 
stands  (which  is  likely  to  be  a  longer  period  than  will 
fall  to  the  lot  of  some  more  modern  buildings),  a 
picturesque  and  enduring  monument  of  naive  people 
who  wrote  comments  about  themselves  on  their  own 
walls,  when  Parsons  and  Campian  were  engaged  in 
what  has  been  called  by  a  modern  historian  "  The 
Jesuit  Invasion." 

The  inscriptions  about  Moreton,  representing  as 
they  do  the  striking  individuality  of  the  house,  or  to 
speak  more  correctly,  of  the  race  of  Moretons,  who, 
not  content  with  building  it,  wrote  their  own  views  of 


102  MOATED  HOUSES 

life  on  every  part  of  the  place  which  lent  itself  to  this 
form  of  handing  down  family  history,  call  for  detailed 
notice.  Words  not  being  thought  a  sufficient  medium, 
symbols  were  also  called  to  the  aid  of  this  new  way  of 
making  seventeenth-century  people's  views  known  to 
distant  posterity.  Let  some  of  these  be  noticed  first. 
Over  the  west  window  a  figure  of  Fortune  is  to  be 
seen  recumbent  under  a  wheel,  the  whole  design 
accompanied  by  this  illustrative  motto — 

"  Qui  modo  scandit  corruet  statim  " — 

a  Latin  observation  which  must  much  amaze  the  present 
occupiers  of  the  place,  or  would  if  they  could  translate  it, 
and  were  not  engaged  in  the  much  more  useful  duties  of 
looking  after  cattle.  At  the  east  end  another  symbol 
meets  the  eye.  It  takes  the  form  of  a  figure  holding 
a  globe,  in  a  posture  which  might  well  be  taken  to 
represent  England  under  her  present  difficulties, 
"  with  an  army  without  soldiers,  pensions  without  the 
money  to  pay  for  them,  an  education  policy  full  of 
bigotry  but  without  a  trace  of  education,  the  confisca- 
tion of  licences  without  a  pretence  of  temperance,  a 
disordered  Ireland  without  government  or  executive, 
and  an  Empire  without  cohesion."  Or  it  might  be 
taken  to  represent  the  poet's  fine  vision  of  his  country 
struggling  under  adversity  : — 

"She  the  weary  Titan 
With  ears  deaf  and  labour-dimm'd  eyes 
Staggering  on  to  her  goal, 
Bearing  on  shoulders  immense, 
Atlantean,  the  weight 
Well  nigh  not  to  be  borne 
Of  the  too  vast  orb  of  her  fate." 


:\=^. ;  *^y  J*    ;    J>  '  .  * 


MORETON   HALL 


MORETON  HALL  105 

The  Moretons,  however,  who  put  this  symbol  up, 
had,  it  would  seem,  different  views  from  those 
held  by  the  author  of  Empedocles  on  Etna,  or  by 
a  late  Solicitor-General.  They  have  entitled  their 
design 

"  The  sphere  of  Destiny  whose  rule  is  Know- 
ledge." 

This  seems  very  occult.  But  dark  as  the  enigma 
is,  it  can  be  studied  in  an  open  courtyard,  whose  sides 
are  formed  of  bay  windows.  It  now  seems  time  to 
go  to  dinner  as  far  as  Moreton's  old  Hall  is  concerned, 
and  the  first  thing  which  strikes  one  on  entering  the 
dining-hall  is  an  heraldic  representation  of  the  arms 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  fixed  over  the  mantelpiece.  The 
Virgin  Queen  is  supposed,  therefore,  by  some  anti- 
quaries to  have  visited  Moreton  in  one  of  her 
innumerable  progresses.  Other  savants  of  the  same 
kind  deny  that  she  was  ever  near  the  place,  and  point 
to  the  absence  of  any  documentary  evidence  as  a  proof 
of  the  correctness  of  their  view.  An  experience, 
however,  gathered  from  a  long  study  of  old  houses 
suggests  that  this  very  reason  advanced  is  fatal  to  the 
theory.  A  royal  coat  of  arms  in  these  places  is  either  a 
memorial  of  a  visit  from  Royalty,  or  it  is  a  memorial 
of  some  service  done  by  the  owners  to  the  Crown. 
And  as  there  is  no  record  of  the  Moretons  having 
ever  done  anything  but  look  after  their  fine  old  house 
and  their  broad  and  level  acres,  it  is  probable  that 
Gloriana,  who  being  a  true  child  of  the  Renaissance 
had  an  eye  for  the  picturesque,  did  take  occasion  to 
pay  Moreton  Hall  a  fleeting  visit,  incognito.  The 


106  MOATED  HOUSES 

history  of  the  house  still  to  be  read  only  in  this  quaint 
Chronicle  of  the  Walls  now  passes  into  the  hands  of 
an  artist  of  the  deepest  dye,  who  with  humility  in- 
separable from  true  genius  and  with  a  weakness  in 
spelling  equally  native  to  that  state,  has  the  temerity 
to  describe  himself  as  "a  Carpeder,"  with  his  own 
hand.  He  built  one  of  the  lower  windows  according 
to  his  own  showing,  and  probably  the  upper  ones  as 
well,  though  a  Moreton,  by  another  inscription,  seems 
at  first  sight  to  lay  claim  to  one  of  these.  He  remarks, 
in  a  mural  forecast  of  one  of  those  scrolls  issued  by 
the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowledge 
and  in  the  quaint  spelling  of  the  day,  the  indisputable 
truth  that 

"God  is  All  in  All  Things," 

and  then  proceeds  to  execute  a  second  piece  of 
handwriting  on  the  wall  more  open  to  contention,  to 
say  nothing  of  grammar.  Its  self-advertizing  purport 
is  as  follows  : — 

'This  window  whire  made  by  William  More- 
ton  in  the  Yeare  of  our  Lorde.     MDLIX." 

But  what  was  William  Moreton  that  he  should 
make  a  window,  and  a  fine  one  too?  He  was  no 
"Carpeder."  He  meant  probably  in  a  moment  of 
ungrammatical  ecstasy  to  say,  not  that  he  built  the 
window,  or  the  windows  aforesaid,  but  that  he  paid 
the  "  Carpeder  "  afore-mentioned  for  building  them. 
This  "  Carpeder  "  as  a  matter  of  fact  is  presently  found 
coming  to  the  rescue  of  his  own  reputation  with  pen 


e  %rch  . 


MORETON   HALL 


MORETON  HALL  109 

—I  mean  chisel — in  hand.     And  the  following  pro- 
nouncement clears  the  difficulty  : — 

"  Richard  Dale,   Carpeder  made  this 
windowe  by  the  Grace  of  God." 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  Moreton  has 
good  claim  to  be  called  the  house  of  inscriptions. 
But  it  must  not  be  thought  that  this  picturesque 
peculiarity  is  confined  to  the  writings  on  its  walls. 
On  the  contrary,  a  very  cursory  examination  of 
the  fine  stained-glass  windows  of  the  dining-room 
shows  that  they  too  have  their  tale  to  tell.  They 
bear  indeed  curious  and  evident  traces  of  several 
people  having  written  all  over  them  with  diamond 
rings.  This  smacks  somewhat  of  a  vulgar  modernity. 
Are  we  looking  at  the  windows  of  a  first-class 
railway  carriage  which  has  borne  bejewelled  book- 
makers  to  a  suburban  race  meeting,  or  venal  beauties 
to  a  dinner  at  the  Star  and  Garter,  where  their  brazen 
eyes  have  stared  at  everything  except  the  incompar- 
able view  ?  The  venerable  surroundings  of  Moreton 
Hall  negative  this  rude  impeachment.  One  of  these 
exercises  of  writing  with  a  diamond  on  glass  especially 
forbids  so  modern  a  suspicion.  This  particular  feat 
of  scholarship  eloquently  calls  for  notice.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  in  a  woman's  handwriting,  and  a  very 
clear  and  beautiful  one  too ;  in  the  second  place,  it 
shows  a  perfectly  accurate  grasp  of  a  knowledge 
in  which  many  contemporaries  were  deficient — that  is 
to  say,  the  art  of  correctly  writing  their  own  names. 
Nothing  indeed  strikes  a  reader  of  old  documents  so 
much  as  this  curious  contemporary  defect.  All  classes 


no  MOATED  HOUSES 

in  the  England  of  Elizabeth  and  James  the  First 
were  victims  to  it.  Shakespeare  did  not  know, 
when  he  took  his  pen  in  hand,  whether  his  name  was 
properly  written  Shakespeare,  Shakespear,  or  Shake- 
spere.  Undecided  as  to  the  proper  spelling,  he  tried 
all  three  ways  in  turn,  as  time  allowed  or  as  Canary 
wine  suggested.  The  Lord-Chief-Justice  of  England, 
than  whom  no  man  more  quickly  made  up  his  mind 
about  a  judgment,  vacillated  too  when  the  spelling 
of  his  own  name  became  the  question  before  the 
Court.  Cook,  Coke,  Cooke,  are  all  to  be  found  at 
the  bottom  of  his  letters,  written  in  characters  more  or 
less  trembling  and  disguised.  Even  a  Gunpowder 
Conspirator  did  not  seem  to  know  whether  his  name 
was  Robert  Winter  or  Robert  Wintour.  And  his 
doubt  on  this  purely  personal  matter  has  joined  con- 
troversialists in  deadly  strife.  Spelling  in  those  days 
must  have  been  purely  a  matter  of  fancy  or  of  the  state 
of  the  writer's  health.  No  such  doubt,  however, 
assailed  the  fair  authoress  of  the  diamond-cut  signature 
on  the  stained-glass  window  of  Moreton  Hall.  Who 
travels  by  the  London  &  North-Western  Railway  and 
can  read — if  Moreton  Hall  is  his  goal,  and  he  is 
fortunate  enough  to  reach  it  safely — will  be  able  to 
decipher  this  signature  clearly  enough.  And  when  he 
has  deciphered  it,  if  he  is  an  imaginative  man,  it  will 
give  him  food  for  thought. 

"Margaret  Moreton     .     Aug.  3  .   1649." 

Personally  speaking,  I  do  not  know  that  any  inscrip- 
tion on  brass,  stone,  glass,  or  paper,  of  men  or  women 
famous  or  the  reverse,  has  stirred  my  fancy  more  than 


MORETON  HALL  113 

this  name  and  date,  guiltless  of  all  comment,  offering 
no  trace  of  any  possible  clue,  and  written  by  a 
woman's  hand  two  hundred  and  sixty-one  years  ago. 
As  our  French  Allies  would  phrase  it,  "  it  gives  one 
furiously  to  think."  What  impulse  prompted  a  wife 
or  daughter  of  this  house  to  write  her  name  on 
her  husband's  or  father's  stained-glass  window  six 
months  after  Charles  the  First's  execution,  and  a 
month  before  Cromwell  put  the  garrison  of  Drogheda 
to  the  sword  ?  Was  this  inscriptive  feat  prompted  by 
some  mournful  Royalist  recollection  ?  Was  Margaret, 
on  the  contrary,  a  sympathizer  with  the  thick-set  man 
in  the  buff  coat  and  orange  scarf  whose  red  nose  was 
already  scenting  that  Irish  carnage  which  was  to 
masquerade  as  conversion  ?  Was  the  fair  scribe 
Puritan  or  Cavalier  ?  Was  she  neither  ?  What  par- 
ticularly prompted  her  at  this  moment  to  this 
inscriptive  effort  destined  to  so  puzzle  posterity  ? 
Was  she  in  love  ?  Was  she  in  a  tantrum  ?  If  she  was 
in  love,  she  may  have  written  her  name  in  the 
ecstasy  of  a  long-hidden  hope  lately  gratified,  while 
the  hoofs  of  her  departing  and  accepted  suitor's  horse 
still  echoed  in  the  courtyard.  If  she  was  in  a  tantrum, 
it  may  have  been  because  a  bashful  lover  had  once 
more  been  too  bashful  to  make  the  long-deferred 
proposal,  and  writing  her  name  on  a  window  was  the 
only  thing  which  kept  her  from  throwing  about  the 
plates.  Who  can  tell  what  impulse  prompted  Margaret 
Moreton  to  write  her  name  so  clearly  on  Moreton 
Hall's  stained-glass  windows  ?  Tragic  impulses  may 
have  impelled  this  piece  of  calligraphy.  A  forsaken 

and  broken-hearted  wife  may  have  eased  a  moment's 
8 


ii4  MOATED  HOUSES 

loneliness  by  the  exercise.  A  love-lorn  maiden  may 
have  been  tempted  to  drown  melancholy  for  a  while 
by  taking  her  diamond  ring  in  hand.  It  may  have 
been  a  lazy  girl's  exercise  on  a  summer's  afternoon 
after  a  hearty  lunch  ! 

Time  keeps  this  secret  of  Moreton  and  Margaret 
safe.  And  records  are  equally  reticent  as  to  the 
meaning  of  a  circular  mound  inside  the  moat,  and  of 
another  and  larger  circular  mound  outside  it.  Both 
possibly  once  supported  towers,  and  they  suggest  the 
existence  of  an  earlier  foundation  ;  or  of  some  earth- 
works thrown  up  in  the  days  of  the  Civil  War,  for 
which  no  use  was  found.  Moreton  Hall,  so  far  as 
records  tell  us,  escaped  the  many  stray  sieges  which 
took  place  all  over  England  in  those  troubled  times, 
and  as  it  now  stands  for  the  admiration  of  all  who  are 
able  to  appreciate  domestic  architecture,  it  can  lay  no 
claim  to  being  a  defensible  house.  Had  it  stood  a 
siege,  and  been  taken,  the  garrison  would  have  been 
put  to  the  sword.  It  is  indeed  a  habitable  house 
solely,  with  its  sleeping-rooms  over  the  fine  old 
gateway;  its  curious  gallery,  68  feet  by  12, 
probably  used  for  dancing  before  that  originally 
stately  form  of  exercise  degenerated  into  the  waltz 
(which  Byron  in  an  indifferent  satire  so  much  de- 
plored) ;  with  its  chapel  on  the  east  side  of  the 
courtyard,  its  painted  windows  and  black-lettered 
texts.  From  the  windows  is  seen  across  the  broad 
moat  a  far-reaching  view  of  green  and  level  pasture- 
land  dotted  with  elms  and  sycamores  on  which  cattle 
graze  for  the  benefit  of  the  present  tenants  of  the 
place,  which  might  possibly  be  in  more  appreciative 


I 


MORETON  HALL  117 

hands.  A  recollection  of  superb  black-and-white 
work,  quaint  inscriptions  carved  scrupulously  on  the 
tell-tale  walls  ;  of  bay  windows  ;  roofs  of  the  solid 
oak  ;  of  square  compartments  filled  with  quatrefoils  ; 
lingers  long  in  the  memory  after  Moreton  Old  Hall 
has  been  visited,  and  left  to  brood  in  silence  over  its 
lonely  and  neglected  fate.  And  then  once  more  the 
name  of  Margaret  appeals  to  the  imagination,  and 
this  time  in  connection  with  a  quaint  and  a  last  in- 
scription in  this  house  which  seems  dedicated  to  them, 
and  which  used  once  to  adorn  a  pane  in  the  east 
window  of  the  chapel— 

"  Men    can    noe    more    knowe    weomans   mynde   by 

teares 

Than    by   her    shaddow    judge    what    clothes    she 
wears." 

Was  Margaret  the  author  of  this  profound  saying, 
happy  in  the  possession  of  a  new  gown  got  by  a  pre- 
tended fit  of  crying  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  Moreton  Old 
Hall  has  at  least  no  more  to  say  on  the  matter. 


VIII 
CROW'S   HALL 

CROW'S  HALL  probably  dates  from  1508. 
This  was  the  year  before  the  death  of  Henry 
the  Seventh,  who,  avaricious  even  when  on 
the  point  of  leaving  a  world  from  which  he  could  take 
nothing  away  with  him,  expired  in  the  Palace  which 
he  had  built  for  himself  at  Richmond,  clutching  at 
imaginary  gold  bags.  Our  miser  King  gave  in  his 
last  debit  and  credit  account,  and  Crow's  Hall  entered 
upon  the  long  period  of  its  quiet  domestic  life,  when 
a  previous  period  of  moral  and  political  stagnation 
was  beginning  to  be  aroused  by  the  movement  of 
great  events.  England  awoke  after  the  twenty-four 
years'  sleep  that  had  followed  the  long  strain  of  Civil 
War.  What  is  called  the  New  Learning — carrying 
under  a  pedantic  name  what  immense  forces  for  good 
or  evil ! — had  just  been  introduced.  Erasmus  was 
watching  and  weighing  well  the  effect  of  that  potent 
and  magic  draught  which  the  nation  was  drinking  in 
so  greedily.  No  signs  of  the  times  present  or  to 
come  escaped  those  clear  eyes  as  they  scanned  the 
mental  horizon  from  the  tower  of  the  beautiful 
Cambridge  College.  At  the  sister  University,  Collet, 
inspired  unknown  to  himself  by  the  magic  influence 


118 


.•>. 


CROW'S  HALL  119 

in  the  air,  delivered  a  series  of  lectures,  curiously  full 
of  thought.  Sir  Thomas  More,  already  meditating 
his  Utopia,  had  just  finished  his  Life  of  Edward  the 
Fifth.  Luther  had  begun  to  lecture  in  Germany,  and 
to  read  into  the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church 
meanings  very  different  from  those  current  at  the 
Vatican.  Knowledge  was  in  the  air. 

It  might  possibly,  however,  have  taxed  the  com- 
bined insight  of  all  the  above-mentioned  experts  to 
discover  the  site  of  the  house  which  gives  its  name 
to  this  paper,  unless  they  had  known  it  from  child- 
hood and  concealed  the  knowledge,  or  stumbled  upon 
it  accidentally  when  they  had  lost  their  way.  Moated 
houses  have  a  tendency  to  nestle.  It  is  easy  to  pass 
them  by,  even  on  the  other  side  of  a  main  road,  with 
the  assistance  of  a  corrupt  guide-book,  an  hereditary 
short-sight,  and  the  admonitions  of  local  rustics.  But 
when  one  of  them,  like  Crow's  Hall,  lies  nine  miles 
from  the  nearest  railway  station,  one  mile  from  any- 
thing that  by  a  strained  courtesy  can  be  called  a  road, 
and  one  mile  also  from  any  other  house  inhabited  by 
man,  woman,  or  child,  its  site  must  be  allowed  to  be 
recondite,  it  may  not  be  justifiably  supposed  not  to 
exist.  The  legendary  searches  of  Long  Ago  recur  to 
the  memory  of  the  enthusiast  engaged  on  this  sort  of 
expedition.  He  wonders  how  Jason  can  have  been 
so  simple-minded  as  to  start  on  his  golden  voyage 
of  discovery  ! — how  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table 
can  have  stored  themselves  with  sufficient  courage  to 
set  out  on  their  more  sacred  search  ! 

And  Crow's  Hall,  when  at  last  lighted  upon  (by 
the  help  of  an  inefficient  railway  service,  a  village 


120  MOATED  HOUSES 

cart  drawn  by  a  Suffolk  Pegasus,  who  seems  to  have 
attained  to  the  age  if  not  to  the  speed  of  that  fabled 
flier,  and  some  local  directions  modelled  seemingly 
on  Lancelot  Gobbo's  instructions  to  Lorenzo  in  the 
Merchant  of  Venice], — Crow's  Hall,  when  at  last 
lighted  upon,  will  repay  the  long  tedium  of  misdirected 
travel,  and  absolve  the  traveller  from  the  guilt  of  the 
many  curses  loud,  not  low,  vented  on  long  and  mis- 
guiding ways.  Seen  in  full  summer,  this  home  of  a 
country  Knight  of  four  hundred  years  ago  looks  like 
a  house  half  built  of  flowers.  They  spring  every- 
where in  a  prodigal  profusion  from  its  grey  brick-work. 
Tennyson's  line,  "  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall,"  takes 
a  full  and  floral  form  here  in  a  mass  of  bloom  which 
bursts  from  the  walls  of  the  old  house,  from  the  walls 
of  the  old  moat,  and  from  underneath  the  brick  and 
steeply  pitched  roof.  Flowers  are  rampant  every- 
where in  this  solitary  seclusion,  but  they,  like  the  old 
house  which  they  so  radiantly  adorn,  are  flowers  of 
the  old  world.  No  modern  horticultural  introductions 
are  to  be  seen  at  Crow's  Hall.  No  orchid  raises  his 
abnormal  head.  He  would  be  as  out  of  place  in  this 
old-world  scene  as  would  a  jerry-builder  bearing 
land  plots  in  his  hand.  Old  fashions  please  the  old 
place  best.  Old  fruit  trees  cast  a  luscious  shade 
in  the  old-world  orchard,  which  is  surrounded 
on  three  sides  by  a  moat  9  feet  deep.  Old- 
fashioned  grass  walks,  fragrant  with  sweet-smelling 
herbs,  intersect  and  limit  the  old-world  pleasaunce. 
Old  wine  rich  with  historic  memories  should  recondite 
in  the  cellar.  As  to  the  flowers,  sweet-william, 
stocks,  carnations  are  the  wear  here.  These  were 


CROW'S  HALL  123 

the   favourite   flowers   in    Cavalier   days.      And   the 
house  is  full  of  Cavalier  memories. 

They  are  memories,  dimmed  with  age  and  mis- 
fortune, of  a  succession  of  gallant  owners  who  sacri- 
ficed themselves  for  an  impossible  loyalty  and  for  a 
lost  cause,  and  the  story  of  whose  deeds  of  unavailing 
self-sacrifice  and  bravery  has  for  the  most  part  been 
effaced  from  all  public  record  by  the  envious  fingers 
of  Time.  The  name  of  Sir  Charles  Bassingbourne 
Gawdy  will  not  be  found  in  the  Child's  Guide  to 
Knowledge,  or  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  or  in  any  well-known  contemporary 
history  of  the  Great  Civil  War.  Yet  this  gallant  Lord 
of  Crow's  Hall  wore  the  crimson  scarf  of  Charles  the 
First  in  many  of  those  hand-to-hand  skirmishes,  into 
which  form  of  disjointed  warfare  the  main  current  of 
civic  strife  passed,  in  the  Eastern  Counties,  and  in 
Suffolk  particularly ;  and  seldom  to  the  advancement 
of  the  King.  The  royal  campaign  here  could  only 
confine  itself  to  a  series  of  ambuscades,  or  desperate 
midnight  forays,  carried  out  in  country  not  adapted 
for  the  purpose,  and  in  which  the  enemy  practically 
sprang  from  the  soil.  It  is  said  that  Sir  Charles 
Bassingbourne  Gawdy  did  so  much  for  his  royal 
master  as  to  undergo  a  siege  in -this  moated  house. 
One  side  of  a  building  too  substantial  to  have  been 
effaced  by  Time,  is  said  to  owe  its  absence  to 
Cromwellian  cannon.  It  is  possible  that  this  may  be 
so  ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  would  have  been  the  result  of  a 
regular  siege.  Crow's  Hall  would  not  in  the  military 
view  of  the  day  have  been  considered  a  defensible 
house.  Now  that  artillery  had  been  introduced,  the 


124  MOATED  HOUSES 

moat  no  longer  sufficed  to  make  a  place  safe.  Had 
Sir  Charles  really  stood  a  siege,  he  would  never  have 
paid  the  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  which 
he'did  pay,  as  a  delinquent,  and  die  on  the  stroke  of 
midnight  1650,  peacefully  in  his  bed.  Both  he  and 
his  garrison  would  have  been  put  to  the  sword  for 
attempting  to  hold  an  indefensible  position.  If 
Roundhead  cannon  worked  the  destruction  they  are 
said  to  have  done  on  Crow's  Hall,  it  was  probably  in 
a  round  or  two  in  the  way  of  reprisal  for  a  Cavalier 
foray  which  had  been  successful,  or  for  an  ambuscade 
which  had  not  missed  its  mark.  The  great  guns 
were  then  limbered  up  by  sour-faced  cannoniers,  and 
dragged  by  great  Suffolk  horses  to  a  wider  range  of 
action.  Such  a  form  of  punishment  for  individual 
acts  of  loyalty  was  often  inflicted  on  the  country 
houses  of  Cavaliers,  in  parts  of  the  country  where  the 
war  had  broken  itself  up  into  segments.  And  it  was 
often  inflicted  when  the  owner  was  not  at  home.  A 
cannon  ball  or  two  was  left  like  a  card.  And  like  a 
card,  it  was  left  as  a  reminder. 

Though  Sir  Charles  Bassingbourne  Gawdy  had 
fought  the  good  fight  unavailingly,  and  though  his 
name  seems  written  in  water,  he  was  fortunate  in  not 
surviving  his  royal  master  for  more  than  a  year  (that 
they  might  not  survive  him  so  long  was  the  common 
wish  of  Cavaliers  of  the  old  type),  and  Crow's  Hall 
seems  still  fragrant  with  the  memory  of  this  departed 
warrior.  The  house,  however,  possesses  factors  of 
interest  other  than  those  of  personal  association,  and 
they  deserve  to  be  dwelt  upon  with  some  detail. 
The  exterior  walls  of  most  of  these  moated  houses  of 


CROW'S  HALL  125 

England  are  all  that  is,  in  most  cases,  left  for  the  lover 
of  old  buildings  to  study.  The  interiors  have  been 
subjected  to  a  restoration  either  frankly  and  entirely 
modern,  or  to  a  praiseworthy  attempt  to  antiquely 
reconstruct  which  has  entirely  missed  its  mark.  The 
same  remark,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  applies  to 
the  other  old  houses  of  the  country  whose  history 
is  not  surrounded  by  a  moat.  Of  these,  H  addon 
Hall  and  Penshurst  can  alone  reveal  interiors  reflect- 
ing the  habits  of  their  founders,  and  the  periods  in 
which  they  were  built.  Penshurst  is  indeed  a  remark- 
able example  in  this  direction,  and  its  profusely 
furnished  interior,  which  perfectly  shows  us  how  our 
ancestors  ate,  sat,  slept,  and  drank,  when  Elizabeth 
was  Queen,  gives  it  claim  to  be  considered  the  most 
perfect  non-moated  show  house  in  England. 

As  a  house  perfectly  moated,  Crow's  Hall  can 
confer  the  same  hardly-to-be-priced  favour.  The 
interior  of  a  Knight's  moated  house  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  preserved  intact,  and  to  the  unspeakable 
benefit  of  future  antiquarian  enthusiasts,  within  these 
stout  oak  doors.  Every  detail  of  the  social  life  of 
that  Yesterday  so  long  gone  by  is  reflected  by  the 
furniture,  can  be  read  from  it  as  if  from  a  book !  The 
latches  are  still  on  the  old  bedroom  doors.  The 
stairway  which  leads  up  to  these  quaint  rooms  which 
once  echoed  to  jolly  Cavaliers'  snores  or  to  the  sighs  of 
Cavalier  maidens  dreaming  on  St.  John  the  Baptist's 
Eve  of  the  destined  yet  unknown  lover,  is,  in  my 
experience,  unique.  Not  only  does  it  give  on  to  the 
courtyard,  without  any  opposing  door  (a  fact  suggest- 
ing the  necessity  of  a  hasty  entrance  or  exit  when 


126  MOATED  HOUSES 

Charles  the  First  was  King),  but  each  stair  is  of  itself 
a  beam  of  solid  oak.  This  last  touch  is  very  indica- 
tive of  the  interior  of  Crow's  Hall.  Solidarity  is 
everywhere.  And  also  everywhere,  in  house,  in 
garden,  in  moat,  are  memories  of  the  Civil  War  and  of 
the  gallants  of  England  who  took  part  in  it. 

Singularly  enough,  however,  a  rumour  which  can 
hardly  be  classed  as  evidence,  it  is  so  vague,  and  yet 
is  so  firmly  planted  in  the  countryside  that  it  can 
hardly  be  despised,  connects  the  house  with  another 
kind  of  warrior  than  a  Cavalier  ;  and  tells  at  the  same 
time  of  a  very  different  sphere  of  activity  than  skir- 
mishes of  Roundhead  and  Cavalier  in  Suffolk  lanes, 
when  it  suggests  that  Crow's  Hall  was  once  tenanted 
by  the  great  Earl  of  Chatham.  The  absence  of  docu- 
mentary evidence,  or  the  non-discovery  of  it  up  to  the 
present  time  of  speaking,  need  not  in  this  instance 
give  the  insister  on  truth  too  abrupt  a  pause.  The 
great  statesman,  who  is  said  to  have  conferred  an 
added  honour  on  this  moated  house,  in  those  strange 
accesses  of  silence  and  of  melancholy  which  came 
upon  him  at  intervals,  which  separated  him  for 
months  together,  both  from  his  highest  political 
aspirations  and  his  staunchest  political  friends,  had  a 
habit  of  secluding  himself  in  out-of-the-way  places, 
where  he  brooded  in  a  gloomy  silence,  and  paid  no 
attention  whatever  to  the  infrequently  appearing  post. 
Once  thus  secluded,  he  rarely  opened  a  letter  which 
by  chance  might  come  into  his  hand.  He  never  or 
seldom  answered  it.  Crow's  Hall  may  have  been  a 
witness  of  postal  assaults  on  retired  statesmen  which 
have  left  no  trace  behind  them.  Some  stray  letters 


CROW'S  HALL  127 

dated  from  this  old  house  in  answer  to  an  unusually 
frenzied  appeal  from  party  passion  may  be  in  exist- 
ence, may  have  been  seen  by  other  inquirers  as  to 
"  What  is  Truth  ?  "  but  they  have  not  been  seen  by  the 
present  writer.  But  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  the 
great  Chatham  may  at  one  time  have  been  a  tenant 
—pleasant  to  picture  the  isolation  of  this  political 
eagle  whose  flaming  glances  made  the  most  brazen 
foreheads  at  once  abase  themselves.  The  calmness 
and  quiet  of  the  house  and  gardens  would  have 
soothed  that  hurt  brain.  Or  was  it  the  painful  great 
toe  that  troubled  the  greatest  orator  and  statesman 
of  the  age  ?  Some  say  that  the  cause  of  Chatham's 
strange  disappearances,  and  accompanying  fits  of 
melancholy,  arose  from  suppressed  gout ;  and  that 
when  his  majestic  great  toe  swelled,  the  cloud  passed 
from  his  great  intellect.  But  whether  it  was  sup- 
pressed gout  or  melancholy  which  drove  the  great 
statesman  into  exile,  let  us  believe  that  Chatham 
suffered  and  recovered  from  one  or  the  other  of  the 
two  complaints  at  this  lonely  moated  house,  on  the 
pages  of  whose  history  even  its  Cavalier  owners 
left  such  a  faint  and  fading  mark,  and  in  whose 
strange  atmosphere  of  isolation  everything  seems  half- 
forgotten. 


IX 
PLUMPTON   PLACE 

THERE  are  many  ways  of  finding  a  moated 
house,  and  many  more  ways  of  missing 
them.  In  their  strange  seclusion  lies  much 
of  their  charm,  and  few  of  the  houses  of  this  kind  are 
more  secluded  than  Plumpton  Place,  though  it  lies 
but  a  stone's-throw  from  the  main  road  between 
Lewes  and  Ditching.  It  was  once  found  in  the 
following  way.  A  visitor  from  a  distant  part  of 
England  happened  to  be  spending  a  summer  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood.  He  had  architectural 
leanings,  and  had  walked  many  miles  to  see  the 
various  fine  churches  of  the  district,  whose  square 
towers  are  as  suggestive  of  Norman  and  strenuous 
days  as  their  quiet  and  green  churchyards  are  the 
reverse.  Yet  for  three  months  of  his  residence  in 
this  part  of  Sussex  he  had  never  heard,  even  though 
his  pilgrimages  after  Norman  churches  were  well 
known  and  well  laughed  at,  that  a  moated  house,  and 
a  singularly  picturesque  one,  added  interest  to  the 
countryside.  Nor,  curiously  enough,  was  it  his  love 
for  architecture  which  led  him  to  a  discovery  of 
this  treasure,  which  lay  veiling  its  forlorn  beauty 
within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  cottage  where  he  was 


138 


FLUMPTON     PLACE 


PLUMPTON  PLACE  129 

passing  the  summer.  It  must  be  mentioned  that  he 
had  another  leaning  besides  a  liking  for  fine  buildings. 
He  was  particularly  fond  of  catching  a  fine  trout. 
This  craving  coming  upon  him  one  day,  when  a 
wet  southerly  wind  blew  from  the  South  Downs,  and 
raised  recollections  of  Izaak  Walton's  most  inspired 
moments  of  calculated  perfidy,  he  asked  the  man 
who  came  to  look  after  his  garden  whether  there  was 
any  place  near  where  an  architect  tired  of  looking  at 
Norman  churches  might  feast  his  eyes  on  a  trout 
stream.  After  a  prolonged  pause  occupied  in  head 
scratching,  he  was  told  that  there  was  no  stream 
nearer  than  Lewes,  but  that  there  was  a  farmhouse 
a  mile  and  a  half  off  with  a  pond  in  front  of  it.  The 
visitor,  athirst  for  fishing,  armed  himself  with  certain 
offensive  weapons  prescribed  by  the  prophet  Walton, 
and  started  off.  He  saw  pike  possibilities  looming. 
He  found  Plumpton  Place. 

Compton  Winnyates  is  called  "  the  house  in  a 
hole  "  ;  Ightham  Moat  stands  in  the  cleft  of  a  gorge. 
Plumpton  Place  lies  in  a  rural  seclusion  so  complete 
that  it  may  be  said  to  hide  itself  in  a  covert.  A 
plantation  of  trees  on  its  south  side  prevents  anyone 
from  seeing  what  sort  of  a  house  it  is  even  if  he 
chanced  to  be  an  antiquarian  perched  on  the  top  of 
the  almost  overhanging  South  Downs.  That  ex- 
quisite range  of  hills  which  screens  the  weald  of 
Sussex  from  the  sea,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  pays 
it  that  tribute  of  brine  blown  across  turf  and  thyme, 
which  forms  the  finest  human  and  agricultural  tonic 
in  the  world,  keeps  guard  over  this  hidden  moated 
house  like  some  warder.  Nowhere  in  their  long 
9 


1 30  MOATED  HOUSES 

range  of  graceful  undulations  is  the  beauty  of  the 
South  Downs  so  fully  seen  as  in  the  five  short  miles 
of  springy  turf  which  separate  Ditchling  Beacon 
from  Lewes.  Fanned  continually  by  breezes  and 
rains  from  the  seas,  these  hills,  which  White  of 
Selborne  admired  more  than  ever,  even  after  a  view 
of  the  Alps,  always,  even  in  the  most  torrid  summer, 
afford  perfect  going  to  man  and  beast.  The  turf, 
as  it  is  trod  upon,  springs  beneath  the  footstep. 
And  why  owners  of  racehorses  send  their  studs  to 
Newmarket  when  this  sort  of  training-ground  lies 
readier  to  their  hand,  must  continue  to  remain  a 
matter  of  conjecture,  till  racing  men  begin  to  think 
reasonably,  till  the  absurdity  of  the  starting-gate  is 
abolished,  and  till  owners  who  possess  valuable  studs 
cease  to  leave  everything  connected  with  them  in 
their  trainers'  hands.  Meanwhile  the  noble  range  of 
the  South  Downs  keeps  watch  over  Plumpton  Place. 
The  approach  to  this  house  in  ambush  is  down 
a  narrow  lane  about  30  yards  in  length.  This  is 
a  passage  from  the  high  road  which  can  be  struck 
quite  at  a  venture,  or  missed,  even  after  the  most 
careful  directions,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  deep 
Sussex  hedgerows  on  either  siiie  of  the  way  are 
crowded  in  summer  with  a  profusion  of  wild  flowers. 
But  we  are  not  for  the  moment  on  a  botanical 
expedition  intent.  We  are  in  search  of  architecture. 
And  presently  a  barn  and  some  outbuildings  suggest 
the  neighbourhood  of  a  farm.  Now,  through  the 
overhanging  elms,  a  fugitive  glance  is  caught  of  grey 
buildings,  not  expected  to  represent  anything 
particular.  But  the  road  makes  a  sudden  turn,  and 


PLUMPTON   PLACE 


PLUMPTON  PLACE  133 

you  are  almost  in  the  Plumpton  moat  itself.  Surprise 
assuaged  having  given  place  to  observation,  the 
visitor  finds  that  the  Plumpton  moat  washes  the 
walls  of  the  house  on  two  sides,  and  on  the  northern 
side  opens  out  into  a  wide  mere  which  represents  the 
Sussex  gardener's  "pond  in  front  of  a  farmhouse." 

Yet  it  is  in  truth  one  of  Nature's  show  places 
without  any  need  of  advertisement,  though,  as  if  for 
the  unselfish  purpose  of  giving  a  chance  visitor  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  its  beauties  from  every  point  of 
view,  a  shaded  footpath  leads  round  the  moat,  and 
also  round  the  lake  into  which  the  moat  opens. 
Every  aspect  of  the  house  is  thus  to  be  seen,  through 
the  help  of  a  convenience  never  intended  for  such  an 
artistic  purpose,  and  which  is  taken  advantage  of  by 
stray  tourists  about  three  times  a  year.  More  frequent 
visitations  are  prescribed  to  lovers  of  the  picturesque. 
Everywhere  this  class  of  sight-seers  will  meet  their 
reward.  Perhaps  the  first  thing  which  will  strike 
them  and  make  them  consult  their  memory  or  their 
guide-books  is  the  remains  of  a  short  avenue  of  yews 
which  must  have  been  standing  in  its  full  complete- 
ness when,  on  the  24th  of  May  1264,  the  fog  clearing 
suddenly  off  the  South  Downs  and  rolling  seawards 
showed  to  Henry  the  Third  the  not  altogether 
inspiring  sight  of  Earl  Simon's  men,  with  black 
crosses  on  breast  and  back,  kneeling  in  prayer  before 
they  rushed  into  the  battle  of  Lewes.  The  streets 
of  that  beautiful  old  Sussex  town  ran  blood  for  many 
hours  after  Fate  had  given  his  final  arbitrament  on 
the  Barons'  Wars.  Henry  the  Third  viewed  this 
desultory  street-fighting  from  the  Castle's  keep.  He 


I34  MOATED  HOUSES 

was  shortly  afterwards  in  the  safer  custody  of  the 
victorious  Simon  de  Montford.  Lus,  it  may  be 
remarked  in  passing,  is  the  proper  pronunciation  of 
this  Sussex  town's  name,  and  not  Lewes,  as  is 
ordinarily  preferred.  As  a  witness  to  this  statement 
let  Tennyson  be  quoted, — Tennyson,  the  greatest  of 
all  the  Victorian  poets,  and  impeccable  in  the  matter 
of  rhyme  :— 

"  And  you,  my  Lords,  you  make  the  people  muse 

In  doubt  if  you  be  of  our  Barons'  breed — 
Were  those  your  sires  who  fought  at  Lewes? 
Is  this  the  manly  strain  of  Runnymede?" 

To  return  to  the  beauties  of  Plumpton  Place.  A 
stone  balustrade  of  a  much  more  recent  date  than 
the  historic  event  above  referred  to,  and  on  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  entrance,  overhangs  the  moat,  and 
must  many  a  time  have  afforded  an  agreeable  rest 
for  leaning  and  whispering  lovers,  when  the  June 
moon  had  turned  the  dark  moat  to  a  glory,  and 
guardians  or  parents,  unsuspicious  and  carousing,  had 
lulled  themselves  into  a  false  security  in  what  must 
have  been  a  noble  banqueting  hall.  Fishermen 
now  whisper  to  each  other  from  this  balustrade  in 
tones  even  more  hushed,  in  all  the  genial  cameraderie 
of  their  craft,  and  intent  on  landing  quite  another 
kind  of  fish.  How  best  to  catch  carp  would  have 
been  the  subject  of  their  t£te-a-tetes.  This  golden- 
scaled  and  particularly  shy  object  of  the  angler's 
ambitions,  first  breathed  the  air  of  England  (if  fish 
can  be  said  to  breathe  at  all,  or  breath  can  be  drawn 
under  water)  in  this  Plumpton  moat.  And  a  recent 
suggestion  that  this  fact  is  not  one,  needs  at  least  ten 


PLUMPTON  PLACE  135 

thousand   years'   purgatorial    fire    to   cleanse  it    from 
deliberate  misstatement. 

This  fact  needs  to  be  stated  with  insistence,  since 
the  man  who  put  the  first  carp  seen  in  England  into 
the  Plumpton  moat  was  a  character.  His  name  was 
Leonard  Mascall.  He  owned  this  old  house,  and 
died  in  it  when  Sir  Francis  Drake  was  plundering 
Corunna.  Before  this  piratical  episode  in  England's 
naval  history,  Leonard  Mascall  had  had  long 
opportunities  of  doing  a  little  plundering  on  his  own 
account.  His  sphere  of  practical  utility,  however,  was 
not  devoted  to  the  high  seas.  The  kitchen  of  no  less 
a  reverend  person  than  Matthew  Parker,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  was  the  arena  in  which  the  guilt  of 
opportunity  offered  itself;  and  it  would  be  laying  too 
much  trust  on  the  weakness  of  erring  humanity  to 
suggest  even  for  a  moment  that  Leonard  did  not 
seize  that  opportunity  with  both  hands.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  without  indecent  research  into  an  Archbishop's 
kitchen  accounts,  that  Leonard  Mascall  became 
unaccountably  rich  ;  and  having  escaped  the  accident 
of  being  thrown  out  of  employment  for  a  dishonesty 
of  which  he  seems  to  have  been  manifestly  guilty,  he 
devoted  the  remainder  of  his  leisure  to  angling  and 
literary  pursuits. 

To  these  pastimes  he  added  a  third.  And  having 
presented  an  ungrateful  country  with  a  new  fish, 
which  lives  to  such  an  age  that  some  of  its  species 
still  swim  in  the  pools  of  Versailles  and  date  from 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  and  is  indued  with  such  a 
cunning  that  it  can  hardly  ever  be  caught  (carp  is 
referred  to),  Leonard  Mascall  did  a  little  gardening 


i36  MOATED  HOUSES 

in  spare  hours  on  a  plot  of  ground  of  which  nothing 
now  remains,  and  in  a  moment  of  fertile  invention  or 
theft  (probably  the  latter)  presented  his  country  with 
the  Golden  Pippin.     This  double  achievement  must 
have  been  the  cause  of  much  self-advertisement,  and 
of  congratulations   equally  well   designed,  for  future 
use  in  many  a  banquet  in  what  was  once  the  great 
hall   of   Plumpton     Place.     This    once    noble    room 
stretches  to  almost  the   length  of  the  entire  house 
towards  the  north.     But  Time  mars  all ;  and  its  fine 
proportions  are  now  divided  and  subdivided  again  to 
give  labourers  lodgings.      In  this  restoration  is  shown 
a  modern  way  of  adapting  what  our  ancestors  called 
the  "solar"  (or  in  plain  words  the  only  room  in  the 
house  comfortable  enough  to  make  a  sitting-room  of) 
to  requirements  purely  modern.     The  simple  differ- 
ence between  our  ancestors  and  ourselves  in  the  way 
of  converting  a  large  room  to  various  other  uses,  is 
that   they  hung  up   an    arras    without   defacing    the 
building,  while  we  deface  a   building  by  putting  up 
walls.     Twelve  families  can  live  in  separate  compart- 
ments in  what  used  to  be   the    banqueting   hall    of 
Plumpton    Place ;  and   they,   if  local   report   can  be 
relied  on,  have  the  bad  grace  to  say  (out  of  hearing 
of    their    landlord)    that    that    place    is    unhealthy. 
Leonard  Mascall  does  not  seem  to  have  found  it  so, 
since  he  lived  to  a  ripe  old  age  ;  and  in  the  intervals 
of  stocking  his  moat  with  carp,  planting  the  Golden 
Pippin   for  the  first  time   in    England,   and  filching 
from  the  kitchen  of  Matthew  Parker,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,    was   able    to    deliver   himself   safely    of 
several  learned  works.     Perhaps  the  basting  he  got 


PLUMPTON  PLACE  137 

in  early  days  before  the  Archiepiscopal  kitchen  fire 
hardened  a  naturally  healthy  constitution.  The 
breezes  blown  from  the  South  Downs  over  Plumpton 
Place  mitigated  the  effects  of  this  youthful  ordeal 
by  fire,  without  destroying  its  inspiring  force.  A 
burst  of  literary  activity  was  the  final  outcome.  And 
the  moated  house  at  Plumpton,  in  due  and  calculated 
intervals,  gave  to  an  admiring  and  expectant  world 
the  following  works  of  erudition  and  of  interest : — 

1.  A  Booke  of  the  Arte  and  Manor  howe  to  plant 
and graffe  all  sorts  of  trees,  howe  to  set  stones  and  sowe 
Peppines  to  make  wylde  trees  to  graffe  on. 

2.  The  Husbandlye  ordring  and  Governmente  of 
Poultrie. 

3.  A  Booke  on  Fishing  with  hooke  and  line. 

4.  Sundrie  Engines  and  Trappes  to  take  Polecats, 
Buzzards,  Rats,  Mice,  and  of  all  instruments  thereto 
belonging. 

May  the  earth  lie  light  on  this  ingenious  author 
who  was  buried  over  three  hundred  and  nineteen  years 
ago  !  Horticulturists  should  honour  him.  Fishermen 
should  never  be  ashamed  to  clasp  his  ghostly  hand, — 
especially  when  they  have  been  fortunate  enough  to 
catch  a  carp. 


X 

COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP 


"  rT^HE  Monks'  Walk,"  by  which  name  is  known 
a  fine  avenue  of  beech  trees,  suggests  that 
this  Berkshire  moated  house  has  an 
earlier  and  ecclesiastical  history  springing  from  a 
remoter  foundation  than  can  at  present  be  traced 
Monks,  so  far  as  moated  houses  are  concerned, 
mean  nothing  —  we  say  it  with  reverence,  since 
Reformation  days.  Yet  seven  experts  out  of  ten 
would  declare  that  Compton  Beauchamp  is  a  Jacobaean 
foundation  and  was  never  anything  else.  Architects 
however,  like  doctors,  are  prone  to  disagree,  and  a 
minority  assign  an  earlier  date  to  some  parts  of  this 
moated  manor  nestling  under  the  Wiltshire  downs. 
But  nobody  at  any  rate  pays  much  attention  to  the 
Palladian  restoration  which  has  been,  so  to  speak, 
fixed  like  a  pack  on  the  back  of  the  original  building, 
whether  the  old  house  can  trace  its  foundation  to 
pre-Elizabethan  days,  or  must  be  content  with  the 
later  period  of  her  Scotch  and  besotted  successor. 

And  yet,  eyesore  as  it  is  to  people  who  have  so 
little  classical  leaven  in  their  architectural  taste  as  to 
prefer  gabled  buildings,  it  is  this  very  Palladian 
addition  which  recalls  the  memory  of  Compton 


COMPTON     BEAUCHAMP 


COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP  139 

Beauchamp's  most  characteristic  owner.  The  late 
Vice-Chancellor  Bacon  is  not  referred  to,  though  his 
reputation  still  lives  as  one  of  the  wisest  and  wittiest 
of  judges — nor  is  reference  made  to  Judge  Bacon, 
who  both  as  Judge  and  proprietor  worthily  upholds 
the  last  of  the  Vice-Chancellors'  reputation  for  ripe 
legal  knowledge  growing  in  the  congenial  atmosphere 
of  wit  and  hospitality.  For  the  Palladian  front  at 
Compton  Beauchamp  recalls  the  memory  of  a  lady 
who  once  owned  the  house,  in  the  agreeable  role  of 
an  heiress,  and  whose  individuality  was  so  marked 
that  the  Palladian  part  of  Compton  Beauchamp, 
which  should  have  been  put  up  in  her  day,  impresses 
itself  upon  the  memory  ;  associates  itself  indissolubly 
with  the  fair,  eccentric,  rich,  and  (if  the  modernism 
may  be  permitted  without  the  accusation  of  vulgarity) 
"  doggy  "  owner. 

Her  name  was  Miss  Anne  Richards,  and  as  Miss 
Anne  Richards  she  was  known  till  the  day  of  her 
death,  an  inevitable  event  rounding  a  long  life  lived 
in  a  generous  yet  exact  accordance  with  her  own 
views  of  men  and  things.  This  is  only  another  way 
of  saying  that  Miss  Richards  was  an  extremely  rich 
and  sensible  woman,  who,  finding  herself  possessed 
of  a  fine  estate  and  plenty  of  money,  chose  to  keep 
the  pleasures  accruing  from  both,  after  proper  hos- 
pitable and  charitable  reservations,  entirely  under  her 
own  control.  Not  that  it  is  suggested  for  a  moment 
that  this  Wiltshire  heiress  was  not  ardently  wooed. 
The  plain  point  is  that  she  was  not  won.  She 
resisted,  on  the  contrary,  a  long  succession  of  fiery 
not  to  say  port-wine  attacks  on  her  hand  and  fortune, 


I4o  MOATED  HOUSES 

holding  out  gallantly  to  the  last  in  an  age  when  the 
word  gallantry  had  some  meaning.  Hers  were  the 
days 

"  When  Courtiers  galloped  o'er  three  counties 
Their  last  night's  partner  to  behold 
And  humbly  hope  she'd  caught  no  cold." 

Many  of  these  irresistible  heroes  rode  up  to  the  fine 
entrance  of  Compton  Beauchamp,  full  of  ardour  and 
hope,  only  to  retire  from  it  disconsolate,  and  medi- 
tating in  what  other  quarter  of  the  fine  downlands 
of  three  counties  a  wife  with  a  fine  figure,  face,  and 
fortune  was  to  be  procured,  who  had  also  an  impec- 
cable taste  on  the  great  questions  of  horses  and  dogs. 
But  however  unfortunate  the  issue  of  their  errand, 
it  had  to  be  made  in  the  most  solemn  state — a  state 
prescribed  and  girt  about  by  the  rule  of  a  rigid 
etiquette  which  was  widely  recognized  as  inviolable. 
If,  metaphorically  speaking,  they  had  to  retire  from 
their  assaults  on  Miss  Richards'  fine  purse  and  fine 
person  with  their  tails  between  their  legs,  they  had 
to  advance  to  that  disastrous  and  unequal  contest 
with  their  servants  carrying  their  wigs  in  a  box  before 
them.  These  they  put  on  at  the  lodge  gate  and  with 
the  strictest  deportment  which  an  age  of  fine  manners 
required  (and  could  also — which  is  another  matter- 
supply),  and  with  their  heads  dressed,  even  after  a 
long  ride,  de  rigueur,  stalked  solemnly  up  a  noble 
approach  to  meet  their  inevitable  fate.  Attack 
succeeded  attack,  but  "  Vse  victis ! "  was  the  inevit- 
able comment. 

But  this  unyielding  and  unwedded    Penelope   of 
Berkshire  had  other  duties  to  perform  than  those  of 


COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP 


COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP  143 

persistently  and  good-naturedly  refusing  the  proffers 
of  gallants  who  proposed  to  marry  her  for  her  money 
under  the  pretence  of  taking  her  for  better  or  worse. 
In  her  spare  moments,  when  she  was  not  attending 
to  the  kennels  or  the  stables — moments  so  arduously 
employed  that  it  is  a  wonder  that  she  had  any  to 
spare — she  carved  in  oak,  painted  in  oils,  and  played 
the  violin.  For  fear  that  doubt  should  be  raised  as 
to  an  activity  so  varied  it  may  be  stated  that  it  will 
be  found  fully  set  forth,  with  a  properly  complimentary 
comment,  in  the  Earl  of  Wilton's  Sports  and  Pursuits 
of  the  English.  This  noble  author,  being  a  sports- 
man of  a  type  long  since  vanished,  himself  lays 
particular  stress  on  one  of  Miss  Anne  Richards' 
favourite  hobbies  (she  was  always  riding  one  of  these 
sort  of  horses  when  she  was  not  driving  a  coach), 
which  should  endear  her  memory  for  ever  with  those 
who  have  any  love  for  the  noble  sport  of  Coursing. 
To  this  she  was  indeed  passionately  addicted.  One 
of  the  fine  and  swelling  uplands  which  rise  above 
Compton  Beauchamp  gave  the  -flame  to  perhaps  the 
earliest  Coursing  Meeting  chronicled.  On  to  this 
particular  down,  or  on  to  one  of  the  many  others  in 
the  neighbourhood,  Miss  Richards  used  to  be  driven 
in  her  coach  (rheumatism  victimized  her  at  an  early 
period  in  her  life)  to  watch  her  favourite  pastime. 
She  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  it  in  perfection. 
On  those  downlands  of  three  famous  English  counties 
(Wiltshire,  Hampshire,  and  Berkshire  are  meant) 
finer  hares  are  bred  than  are  ever  to  be  seen 
at  Aintree ;  and  the  natural  rise  and  fall  of  the 
ground  gives  both  them  and  their  pursuers  an  equally 


I44  MOATED  HOUSES 

balanced  advantage.  Directly  a  Wiltshire  or  Berk- 
shire hare  finds  himself  in  the  strenuous  predicament 
of  being  coursed,  he  makes  at  top  speed  for  a  rise 
in  the  ground.  If  he  reaches  it,  the  greyhounds  know 
that  all  is  over.  The  converse  of  the  proposition  is 
equally  fatal  to  the  hare.  Coursing  in  its  ideal  form 
should  undoubtedly  be  seen  on  downlands. 

Miss  Richards  must  have  seen  much  of  the  sport, 
and  in  this  perfection,  before  the  inevitable  summons 
came  to  her  to  depart  to  where  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
even  hunting-grounds  are  happier,  and  to  leave 
Compton  Beauchamp,  to  say  nothing  of  the  world, 
without  however  leaving  a  husband  behind  her  to 
ostentatiously  deplore  her  loss,  and  more  ostenta- 
tiously spend  her  money.  A  few  concluding  remarks 
may  be  made  on  her  tenancy  of  Compton  Beauchamp. 
"  Doggy "  has  not  been  an  epithet  applied  to  her 
without  due  grounds.  One  example  in  support  of 
this  assertion  will  suffice.  Compton  Beauchamp  was 
in  this  lady's  lifetime  a  veritable  dogs'  home. 
Dogs  were  in  fact  everywhere,  and  very  often  where 
the  cook  and  the  housemaids  did  not  wish  to  find 
them.  The  complete  canine  usurpation  which  pre- 
vailed may  best  perhaps  be  described  by  simply 
saying,  that  every  servant,  when  he  or  she  entered 
the  house,  was  asked  if  they  liked  these  friends  of 
man.  The  negative  or  affirmative  reply  ensured 
instant  dismissal  or  long  service. 

The  outward  aspect  of  this  good-natured  though 
eccentric  lady's  hobbies  is  one  of  great  beauty.  It 
is  deeply  moated,  the  bed  of  the  moat  being  paved 
with  brick,  as  well  as  its  sides ;  and  the  gardens  and 


COMPTON  BEAUCHAMP  145 

the  lawns  which  lie  between  the  house  and  the  downs 
are  so  cunningly  and  yet  artistically  arranged  as  at 
the  same  time  to  be  practically  sheltered  from  every 
hostile  wind  that  blows,  and  yet  to  catch  every  ray 
of  even  an  English  sun.  This  is  to  say  a  good 
deal  for  Berkshire.  This  county  is  rich  in  historical 
associations,  though  they  are  not  always  sunny. 
Romance,  however,  breathes  from  many  of  its  uplands. 
Littlecote  Hall,  with  its  legend  of  unequalled  horror, 
is  within  easy  distance ;  the  lone  ale-house  on  the 
Berkshire  moors  recalls  the  Scholar  Gipsy  and  at  the 
same  time  Matthew  Arnold's  exquisite  elegy.  And 
Compton  Beauchamp,  with  all  its  native  beauty  of 
site  and  surroundings,  has  to  pay  another  and  an 
outside  toll  to  the  magic  influence  of  Romance.  It  lies 
quite  close  to  a  well-known  scene  in  perhaps  the 
finest  of  the  Waverley  Novels. 

The  Hill  of  the  White  Horse  almost  overshadows 
the  house.  It  constantly  attracts  the  curiosity  of 
visitors  for  miles  round.  But  the  novel  of  Kenilworth 
will  always  appeal  more  directly  to  people  of  an 
imaginative  bent  than  this  monument  of  a  doubtful 
victory  cut  into  the  chalk,  and  those  who  in  these 
days  of  a  degenerated  taste  can  still  read  their  Scott, 
will  remember  that  in  this  immediate  neighbourhood 
Edmund  Tressilian  had  his  first  and  strange  inter- 
view with  Wayland  Smith.  The  site  of  the  smith's 
subterranean  smithy  is  still  shown  by  gaping  rustics 
ignorant  of  what  shrine  they  are  disclosing,  or  why 
literary  visitors  should  stand  enrapt.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  consider  at  whom  Sir  Walter  pointed  when 
he  drew  the  character  of  Doctor  Alasco,  who,  it  may 

10 


146  MOATED  HOUSES 

be  remembered,  had  previously  been  a  tenant  of  this 
underground  smithy,  and  had  unconsciously  inducted 
Wayland  Smith  into  some  of  the  Black  Art.  But  in 
Alascothe  celebrated  or  infamous  Italian  Doctor  Julio 
Was  no  doubt  hinted  at.  Julio — always  in  an  ominous 
attendance  on  the  great  Earl  of  Leicester,  to  whose 
account  so  many  Elizabethan  sudden  deaths  were 
justly  or  unjustly  laid.  A  contemporary  tract 
supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Parsons  the  Jesuit 
throws  quite  a  search-light  of  discovery  or  of  slander 
on  this  physician  or  poisoner  from  Italy.  Apart  from 
this,  the  figure  of  Doctor  Alasco  with  those  of  Way- 
land  Smith  and  Tressilian  remain  the  most  lasting 
memories  of  Compton  Beauchamp,  in  spite  of  its 
secluded  garden  full  of  an  old-world  charm,  its  clear 
and  deep  moat,  and  the  personality  of  the  genial  and 
eccentric  Miss  Anne  Richards,  whose  passion  was 
Coursing ; — who  remained  so  determinately  Virgin 
Queen  of  her  small  kingdom  ; — and  who  never  allowed 
anybody  to  come  to  her  house  without  taking  a  good 
meal  away  with  them,  to  say  nothing  of  a  pot  of  the 
best  home-brewed  ale. 


•    --i^ 


PAR  HAM     HAI.L 


XI 
PARHAM 

MANY  people  had  to  fly  from  England  during 
the      Marian      persecutions.     Among      the 
number  were  a  certain  gentleman,  by  name 
Richard  Bertie,  and  his  wife,  Catharine.     This  lady, 
who  was  the  heiress  of  Parham,  had  already  been  the 
wife   of  the    celebrated    Charles    Brandon,   Duke  of 
Suffolk.     The  armour  of  this  first  tilter  of  his  age  is 
still  to  be  seen  in  the  Tower  of  London,  and  Henry 
the  Eighth,  in  his  prime,  was  only  just  able  to  hold 
his  own  against  him.     Charles  Brandon  was  in  fact 
the     English    Admirable    Crichton     of    the    Tudor 
period,  and  to  have  been  the  wife    of  such  a  man, 
to  say  nothing  of  the   further  experience  of  having 
succeeded    in    becoming    his    widow,    was    to    have 
attained   to    no   common    lot    in    the    experience    of 
humanity.       Catharine    Bertie,    however,    versed    as 
she  must  have  been   in    the  world's    affairs,  had    to 
add  a  novel  and  final   item   to   an    already   full  list. 
Fugitives  from    the    Smithfield   fires,    she   and   her 
husband   went  to   a    morning  service  at   St.    Wille- 
broard's   Church  at   Wesel.       In   the  very  porch  [of 
the  church,  a  son  was  born  to  her.     He  was  chris- 
tened Peregrine,  and  was  afterwards  the  celebrated 

»47 


I48  MOATED  HOUSES 

Lord  Willoughby  of  Eresby,  and  as  such,  also  Lord 
of  Parham. 

His  arms  are  carved  on  the  remarkable  Tudor 
gateway  which  guards  the  entrance  to  his  old 
Suffolk  home,  which  lies  in  fine  park-lands,  is  deeply 
moated,  and  dates  back  at  least  two  centuries  before 
Tudor  architects  laid  a  stone  to  the  gateway.  The 
fame  of  this  Peregrine,  Lord  Willoughby  of  Eresby, 
is  chronicled  in  the  history  of  the  Low  Country  Wars, 
and  in  a  book  of  poems  called  the  Suffolk  Garland, 
an  edition  of  which  was  published  in  Ipswich  so  late 
as  1818. 

One  stanza  may  be  sufficient  to  stimulate 
students : — 

"  Stand  to  it,  noble  pikemen, 
And  fence  ye  well  about ; 
And  shoot  ye  sharp,  bold  bowmen, 
And  ye  will  keep  them  out  ! 
Ye  muskets  and  caliver  men 
Do  ye  prove  true  to  me, 
We'll  be  the  foremost  in  the  fight." 

Peregrine,  Lord  Willoughby  of  Eresby  and  of 
Parham,  seems  always  to  have  been  in  this  position. 
And  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  scene  of  action 
was  what  have  been  called  "the  loud  Low  Country 
Wars,"  and  that  the  opponents  of  his  pike,  bow, 
musket,  and  caliver  men  were  that  redoubtable 
Spanish  infantry,  which  had  been  drilled  under  Alva, 
and  were  at  the  moment  fighting  under  the  directions 
of  the  Prince  of  Parma,  no  wonder  need  be  felt,  in 
spite  of  the  deficiencies  of  a  local  poet,  that  the  Lord  of 
Parham's  military  qualities  were  the  admiration  of  all 
England,  to  say  nothing  of  his  native  county  of 


PARHAM  149 

Suffolk,  which  did  not  hesitate  to  celebrate  them  in 
indifferent  verse. 

When  this  man,  born  as  he  had  been  in  a  church 
porch,  stood  in  the  middle  of  his  square  to  resist  the 
attacks  of  the  Prince  of  Parma,  he  was  pitting  his 
capacity  as  a  commander  against  the  greatest  military 
genius  of  the  age,  and  the  courage  of  those  soldiers 
which  his  own  county  of  Suffolk  had  largely  enlisted 
for  him,  against  an  infantry  which  had  never  met 
defeat  in  European  war  yet.  The  memory  of  suc- 
cesses so  successive  and  so  signal  must  have  fired  the 
eyes  of  this  natural-born  fighter  as,  at  the  close 
of  campaigns  in  which  his  square  of  self-trained 
English  infantry  had  never  been  broken,  he  let  them 
rest  on  the  grey  walls  of  his  Suffolk  home.  Parham 
is  best  seen  with  the  eyes  of  this  conqueror  returning  : 
thought  of  as  the  moated  pavilion  of  this  Paladin 
coming  back  from  the  wars.  After  having  passed 
through  the  Tudor  gateway  which  seems  to  have 
been  built  to  celebrate  one  or  all  of  his  many  triumphs, 
this  conquering  hero  from  the  Low  Countries  rested 
grateful  eyes  once  more  on  the  home  of  his  boyhood 
and  the  cradle  of  his  military  fame. 

Parham  would  have  appeared  to  his  eyes  like  a 
house  built  in  a  pond.  Water  washes  two  sides  of  it, 
and  in  this  water  fishermen  are  often  seen  at  work,  as 
they  often  were  no  doubt  in  those  Elizabethan  times 
when  Ridolfi  the  Italian  banker  and  Government 
agent  was  drawing  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  into  a  care- 
fully manufactured  plot,  and  the  streets  of  Paris 
were  streaming  with  blood  on  the  night  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  and  England  was  helping  the  heroic 


1 5o  MOATED  HOUSES 

Netherlanders  by  land  and  sea,  and  Lord  Willoughby 
was    returning   unscarred    and  triumphant    from    the 
noble  part  he  had  taken  in  that  assistance  which  had 
been  so  long  and  so  nearly  fatally  delayed.     Perhaps 
he  too,  with  the  recollection  of  his  gallant  pikemen's 
doings  in  the  Low  Countries,  took  a  turn  at  the  Par- 
ham  pike.      Fishing  is  a  meditative  pastime,  or  was 
so  in  Lord  Willoughby's  days  when  the  art  of  trolling 
had  not    been    invented,    and    the    standing   up  and 
wielding  of  a  heavy  rod  was   not  necessary  for  the 
sport.     Ground  bait,  a  quaint  hook  carefully  decor- 
ated, a  good  float,  and  a  seat  on  the  bank  were  all  the 
equipments    needed.      I    like    to   picture    the  gallant 
soldier  fresh  from  the  wars  at  this  contemplative  sport. 
The    man    who    waited    over   and  over    again    for 
the    designedly    postponed  attacks  of  the    Prince   of 
Parma  would  not  have  been  an  impatient  angler.      He 
would  have  awaited  the  Parkham  pikes'  procrastina- 
tion with  soldierly  calm.     I  suspect  him,  as  he  was  a 
great  organizer  of  commissariat,  of  having  a  flask  of 
Rhenish  in  his  fishing-basket.     When  he  was  tired  of 
looking   at   his   perfectly    motionless  float,  he    could 
raise  his  eyes,  still  full  of  the  iron  light  of  battle,  and 
feast  them  with  the  incomparable  satisfaction  of  the 
owner   on   the   picturesque   beauties   of  his   moated 
house.     He    would    not    have    seen    the   causeway 
across  the   moat,   because  it  has  only  in  late  years 
been  substituted  for  the  drawbridge,  which,  we  may 
be  well  assured,  was   raised  at  night  with  the  strictest 
military  punctuality,  but  his  eyes  would  have  rested 
on    the    picturesque   gables    which    at     Parham    are 
particularly  highly  pitched,  and  on  the  splendid  bay 


rick  OneJ/* 


%  '-  , 

v^  •>    ,     A  '.    • 
' • 


PARHAM   HALL 


PARHAM  153 

windows  which  look  out  on  the  water-washed  side  of 
the  house,  and  which  spring  from  the  moat  itself.  It 
may  have  occurred  to  him  on  looking  at  these  bays 
that  his  ancestors  who  built  the  house  far  back  in  the 
times  when  Jack  Cade  was  meditating  his  socialistic 
campaign,  knew  of  the  aid  to  health  and  good  spirits 
which  can  be  got  by  windows  designed  to  admit 
plenty  of  light.  He  would  now  turn  his  eyes  to  his 
float  and  find  that  it  had  disappeared.  The  next 
moment  he  had  lost  a  pike. 

His  hook  having  been  readjusted,  and  a  fresh 
decoy,  in  the  form  of  ground  bait,  thrown  into  the 
scene  of  action,  the  reclined  and  meditative  fisher- 
man's thoughts  would  gradually  take  a  more  martial 
tinge,  and  as  the  Parham  gables  began  to  shine  under 
a  westering  sun,  he  would  stretch  himself  gratefully 
under  that  soothing  influence,  and  with  ears  soothed 
by  the  slow  lapping  of  water  against  the  sides  of 
the  moat,  fight,  in  fancy,  some  of  his  old  battles 
again.  The  swarthy  faces  of  Parma's  picked  infantry 
pressed  once  more  right  up  to  that  inviolable  line  of 
English  pikes,  on  which  they  sacrificed  themselves 
again  and  again,  but  which  even  their  splendid  and 
disciplined  valour  had  never  been  able  to  penetrate ! 
Next  before  the  half-sleeping  soldier's  eyes  rose  a 
vision  of  the  sack  of  some  Low  Country  town,  with  its 
accompaniments  of  desperate  hand-to-hand  fighting 
at  street  corners,  the  clash  of  steel  on  armour,  the 
brazen  clamour  of  the  alarm  bell,  the  screams  of 
terrified  women,  the  glare  of  houses  going  up  in  flames. 
The  recollection  of  a  certain  ambuscade  now  presented 
a  vivid  picture  of  the  great  Duke  of  Parma  himself, 


I54  MOATED  HOUSES 

with  his  splendidly  uniformed  staff  about  him,  recon- 
noitring a  position  in  person,  but  annoyingly  keep- 
ing just  out  of  caliver  range.  The  Duke's  gold 
damascened  armour  shone  like  flame  ;  he  stroked  the 
neck  of  the  white  charger  he  rode.  Willoughby 
clearly  saw  once  more  the  olive  skin,  the  fine  Italian 
features  of  the  greatest  captain  of  his  age,  as  he  leaned 
on  one  side  to  ask  a  question  of  one  of  his  staff. 
Would  no  fortunate  impulse  urge  the  Prince  twenty 
paces  nearer  that  English  ambush  in  which 
Willoughby's  Suffolk  caliver-men  lay  trembling  with 
excitement  and  with  weapons  aimed  for  a  fatal  shot  ? 
No  !  After  one  long  look  at  some  rising  ground  on  the 
left,  shading  his  eyes  with  his  gauntleted  hand  from 
the  slanting  rays  of  the  sun,  Parma  says  something  to 
his  staff,  turns  his  white  charger  leisurely,  slowly  rides 
back  to  the  Spanish  lines  !  What  an  opportunity  care- 
fully calculated  missed  by  the  narrow  margin  of  twenty 
paces  !  Now  the  Lord  of  Parham  is,  in  his  dreams,  up 
to  his  knees  in  mud  besieging  some  frontier  town  of 
Flanders.  The  rain  falls  unceasingly  into  the  newly 
opened  trenches.  Even  the  sturdy  Suffolk  con- 
tingent as  they  march  up  and  down  the  dreary  lines 
can  hardly  restrain  their  curses  at  the  Spaniards  and  at 
the  weather.  Worse  and  worse  grows  that  pitiless 
downpour.  Sir  Peregrine  starts  at  last  from  that 
sodden  ground  where  he  has  thrown  himself  down  to 
snatch  a  moment's  rest.  He  rubs  his  eyes,  finds  him- 
self wet  through,  his  rod  and  line  gone  with  a  pike  at 
the  end  of  it,  and  the  gables  of  Parham  dripping  a 
furious  thunder-shower. 

The  Lord  of  Parham  enters  his  picturesque  home. 


GEDDING    HALL 


XII 
GEDDING 

MARIANA  might  have  looked  from  a  case- 
ment of  this  typical  moated  grange,  and 
every  line  of  Tennyson's  exquisite  poem 
comes  back  to  the  memory  at  the  first  view  caught 
of  the  lonely  house.  Poplars,  silver  green,  shade  one 
side  of  its  old  brick  walls,  which  have  no  story  to 
tell  save  that  penned  in  the  impalpable  pages  of 
surmise  :  the  faces  that  glimmer  through  its  doors 
seem  not  to  be  those  of  its  inhabitants  of  to-day, 
but  rather  the  people  who  lived  in  the  place  in 
that  mystic  period  of  "Once  upon  a  Time,"  whose 
memories  are  not  to  be  marked  by  dates,  and  whose 
history  is  mirrored  only  in  the  imagination.  Foot- 
steps still  tread  its  upper  floors,  voices  still  call  across 
the  moat  on  which  marish  mosses  cluster ;  but  the 
footsteps  seem  the  tread  of  long-departed  guests,  the 
voices  but  the  faint  and  scarcely  to  be  distinguished 
echoes  from  a  vanished  world. 

And  so  Gedding  stands  apart  from  other  moated 
houses  in  a  remote  and  picturesque  isolation.  Even 
of  the  ancient  race  of  the  Bokenhams  who  are  once 
said  to  have  lived  in  it,  nothing  has  been  handed 
down  but  the  name.  A  faint  rumour  connects  the 


1 56  MOATED  HOUSES 

place  with  the  presence  of  a  literary  priest  about  the 
year  1393,  but  the  rumour  soon  fades  into  that  dim 
atmosphere  of  mystery,  which  veils  the  place  as  if  it 
were  some  shrine  set  apart  from  the  curious  and 
inquisitive,  and  dedicated  to  the  purpose  of  a  story 
that  is  never  destined  to  be  told.  This  house,  if  any 
house  can,  must  tell  its  own  tale.  Stones  must 
speak  here  in  their  suggestive  whispers  ;  grey  gables 
nod  consent  to  the  story  ;  affirmation  be  lent  only  by 
the  low  murmurs  of  the  moat.  We  are  in  the  Land 
Enchanted  of  Uncertainty.  The  full  tide  of  historic 
event  may  have  washed  the  walls  of  the  old  house  as 
closely  as  its  moat  washes  them  now,  but  if  it  has  so 
washed  them,  it  has  receded,  and  left  no  mark. 
There  is  no  sign  to  be  seen  in  the  lonely  reaches  of 
the  level  landscape  which  evokes  the  memory  of 
event ;  no  local  legend  or  countryside  rumour  which 
lends  the  faintest  colour  of  human  interest  to  this 
grey  memorial  of  the  past  standing  in  solitude. 

Generations  have  been  born  in  it,  and  have  at  the 
fulness  of  time  appointed  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh, 
or  have  been  prematurely  cut  off  from  a  destiny  which 
promised  a  fairer  fate  by  the  blind  Fury's  abhorred 
shears.  The  pall  has  quaked,  the  slow  funeral  gone 
by,  many  a  time  over  the  wooden  bridge  across  the 
moat.  Many  times  as  often,  the  casements  must 
have  shone  with  the  jolly  illuminings  of  many  a 
wedding  dance,  and  the  grey  walls  echoed  the  festal 
sounds  of  marriage  music.  Village  Hampdens  may 
have  dreamed  here  of  stricken  fields  to  which  they 
were  never  to  be  called  to  strike  a  blow  for  liberty, 
and  mute  inglorious  Miltons  may  have  mused  by  the 


GEDDING  iS7 

banks  of  the  brimming  moat  on  deathless  poems 
destined  never  to  see  the  printer's  hands.  What 
family  attorneys,  decorous  in  the  formalities  of  wig, 
snuff,  and  legal  jargon,  have  not  drawn  up  wills  here 
in  favour  of  what  greedy  heirs,  and  which  were  yet 
fated  to  be  pronounced  against  and  ruthlessly  set 
aside  as  testamentarily  speaking  of  no  value !  What 
long  succession  of  family  feuds  have  not  been  settled 
here  for  the  decent  time  being,  only  to  break  out 
again  with  renewed  ardour !  What  pairs  of  lovers 
innumerable  have  not  exchanged  whispered  vows  in 
these  corridors  which  have  long  ceased  to  echo  their 
loitering  tread  !  The  mouse  shrieks  from  the  moulder- 
ing wainscot  of  that  lovers'  promenade  now,  or  peers 
about  from  the  crevice  on  the  scene  of  those  bygone 
gallantries.  A  square-headed  doorway,  close  to  the 
wooden  bridge,  and  leading  by  four  steps  guarded  by 
a  handrail  down  to  the  moat,  suggests  possibilities  of 
elopements  in  the  house's  history  that  can  never  be 
known  :  of  a  happy  pair  taking  their  future  for  better 
or  worse  into  their  own  hands,  and  stealing  furtively 
through  this  postern  to  wedded  joy  or  misery  quite 
unperceived  ;  while  guardians  kept  futile  eyes  suspici- 
ously on  the  bridge  ;  or  were  drinking  in  the  room 
just  overhead,  in  a  final  agreement  that  the  marriage 
should  never  take  place.  Soldier  sons,  in  the  full 
tide  of  strength  and  manly  beauty,  have  left  despairing 
sweetheart  or  mother  here,  many  a  time  in  the  old 
house's  history  :  have  crossed  with  martial  swagger 
the  wooden  way  to  glory  over  the  moat  (transformed 
by  the  occasion  into  a  temporary  Bridge  of  Sighs). 
Gedcling  would  have  been  "  the  palace  on  one  hand  " 


I58  MOATED  HOUSES 

of  this  episode,  sheltering  who  knows  what  treasures 
of  beauty  momentarily  abandoned  at  country's  call  : 
"the  prison  on  the  other  hand"  was  very  likely  at 
that  moment  yawning  for  its  coming  military  occupant 
in  France  or  Flanders.  The  walls  of  the  old  house 
suggest  hundreds  of  such  everyday  scenes  in  the 
prolonged  comedy  of  human  life — suggest  them,  seem 
to  smile  or  frown  in  assent  or  denial ;  but  say 
nothing. 

This  is  in  truth  what  finally  has  to  be  said  in  this 
case  of  a  home  with  no  record,  whose  architectural 
side  even  calls  for  no  particular  comment,  but  whose 
general  appearance  is  marked  by  an  extreme  and 
suggestive  picturesqueness.  The  surrounding  country 
heightens  this  effect,  in  its  green  expanses  of  rich 
meadow  land,  dotted  here  and  there  with  poplars  with 
their  gnarled  barks,  and  lapped  in  a  silence  unbroken 
except  by  the  distant  lowing  of  oxen.  But  the 
memory  of  Mariana  is  everywhere  —  not  she  of 
Measure  for  Measure,  in  that  moated  grange  of 
hers  "  by  St.  Luke's,"  outside  Shakespeare's  imaginary 
Vienna  (of  all  places  in  the  world  for  a  building  of 
the  kind),  and  to  which  the  disguised  duke  of  the 
play  goes  on  his  errand  of  justice — but  the  Mariana 
of  the  later  poet,  who  has  taken  her  and  her  moated 
grange  from  out  those  mid-European  suburban  sur- 
roundings, and  reset  them  in  some  such  type  of 
English  scenery  as  that  which  lies  about  Gedding 
and  to  the  accompaniment  of  imperishable  verse. 
As  the  memory  of  Tennyson's  poem  is  the  first  im- 
pression given  by  the  sight  of  this  moated  grange,  so 
it  remains  the  last,  as  the  shadows  lengthen  across  the 


Oriel 


GEDDING   HAl.L 


GEDDING  161 

gleaming  flats  and  the  day  slopes  towards  his 
chamber  in  the  West.  The  treasures  inexhaustible 
of  that  rich  imagery  recur  to  us ;  seem  waltzed  in 
whispers  of  approval  from  those  grey  brick  walls  of 
the  old  house,  which  can  alone  tell  its  story.  The 
sluice  with  blackened  water  sleeps  at  our  feet ;  gusty 
shadows  sway  in  the  casement  curtains ;  the  sound  of 
the  clinking  latch  is  heard  being  uplifted  :  the  broken 
sheds  on  one  side  of  the  building  look  sad  and 
strange ;  and  worn  and  weeded  the  ancient  thatch, 
or  the  brick  tiles  crushed  with  blackest  moss  which  at 
Gedding  does  duty  for  it.  There  is  a  dreariness 
about  this  lonely  moated  grange.  Mariana  is  every- 
where. 

Her  memory  still  haunts  it,  and  that  in  spite  of  a 
recent  and  extremely  tasteful  restoration.  And  it  is 
much  to  the  credit  of  the  present  owner  and  his 
architectural  advisers  that  the  old  house  has  been 
made  habitable  without  destroying  its  strange  and 
unique  character.  An  Alderman  is  to  be  congratu- 
lated in  this  matter,  and  one  who  is  also  a  Justice  of 
the  Peace.  No  Dogberry  has  laid  his  heavy  and 
despoiling  hand  on  an  architectural  feat  which  has 
changed  a  lonely  and  desolate  moated  grange  into  a 
habitable  great  place  without  defacing  the  romantic 
beauty  of  the  earlier  foundation.  And  so  under 
Alderman  Wakeley  J.P.'s  hospital  rule  the  life  of  the 
decayed  old  moated  grange  has  been  renewed  at  the 
very  moment  when  its  last  breath  seemed  about  to  be 
drawn.  The  faded  memories  of  past  festivities  have 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  put  on  the  new  garb  of  a 
genial  modern  entertaining.  Life  pulses  through 


1 62  MOATED  HOUSES 

Gedding  once  more.  And  the  story  of  the  house 
which  has  been  told  only  as  a  surmise  may  now  take 
a  palpable  form  and  move  to  its  appointed  goal  on 
firm  and  fortunate  feet.  The  casements  will  again 
shine  with  jolly  illuminings  ;  the  grey  walls  echo  the 
festal  sounds  of  marriage  music  ;  lovers  will  exchange 
whispers  in  the  long  corridors  ;  modern  Hampdens 
will  dream  here  of  a  political  Utopia  never  likely 
to  be  realized  ;  soldier  sons  will  cross  the  moat  seek- 
ing glory  or  our  new  Territorial  Army.  Hundreds 
of  such  everyday  scenes  in  the  prolonged  comedy  of 
human  life  will  be  played  within  the  grey  walls  of 
Gedding  restored.  Modernity  is  a  factor  which  must 
make  itself  felt.  But  one  memory  of  the  old  house 
it  will  never  be  able  to  destroy.  And  that  is  the 
memory  of  Mariana.  She  is  still  everywhere. 


MOYN'S    COURT 


XIII 
MOYN'S  PARK 

THE  dairy  at  Moyn's  Park  has  been  pronounced 
by  experts  to  be  a  bit  of  fourteenth-century 
work.  And  this  view  is  probably  correct, 
though  the  whole  outward  aspect  of  this  extremely 
fine  moated  house  suggests  nothing  but  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  sixteenth  century  in  its  most  perfect 
architectural  prime.  But  as  is  the  case  in  so  many 
other  houses  of  this  kind,  the  moat  (or  what  at 
Moyn's  Park  is  left  of  it,  and  that  unfortunately  hardly 
more  than  a  suggestion)  tells  its  antiquarian  tale ; 
fixes  the  real  date  of  the  house's  birth.  It  becomes 
evident,  that  long  before  Tudor  architects  were  called 
upon  to  use  their  fine  skill,  the  characteristic  wide 
and  deep  ditch  full  of  water  (that  lasting  monument 
murmuring  of  the  insecurity  of  days  long  dead)  had 
encircled  in  its  protective  embrace  a  much  earlier 
foundation.  Of  this  original  house  the  supposed 
fourteenth-century  dairy  is  no  doubt  a  remains. 
Soon  after  the  Conqueror  had  carved  England  into  a 
political  purpose,  and  made  those  rough  yet  wise 
laws  which  everybody  now  laughs  at,  but  which 
carried  in  them  the  vital  truth  that  property  has  its 

duties  as  well  as  its  rights,  some  people  of  the  name 

163 


164  MOATED  HOUSES 

of  Le  Moigne  were  settled  here.  The  head  of  the 
house  had  worn  harness  at  Hastings,  but  land  had 
no  sooner  been  granted  him  to  build  a  house  upon, 
as  a  reward  for  his  services,  than  he  set  people  to 
work  upon  a  moat.  Domestic  comfort  was  not  much 
cared  for  by  householders  of  those  days.  The  moat 
was  the  first  thing  to  be  thought  of. 

And  so  Moyn's  Park  may  be  included  among 
the  moated  houses  of  England,  though  that  moat, 
which  should  be  its  most  salient  feature,  is  now  only 
represented  by  a  fragment,  spanned  too,  it  is  painful 
to  have  to  say  it,  by  an  apparently  modern  bridge. 
Yet  Robert  le  Fitzwilliam  le  Moigne,  who  lived 
when  Piers  Gaveston  was  ruling  England  (though  it 
was  popularly  supposed  to  be  ruled  by  King  Edward 
the  Second),  would  have  looked,  in  the  intervals  of 
wine  and  slumber,  from  the  narrow  windows  of  the 
earlier  foundation  on  a  moat  which  may  be  con- 
fidently asserted  to  have  completely  surrounded  his 
less  decorated  structure,  and  which  was  always,  for 
simple  safety's  sake,  bountifully  brimmed  with  water. 
These  were  the  days  when  the  motto  of  "  Scotland 
for  ever"  was  illustrated  in  blood  and  flame  on  the 
field  of  Bannockburn.  And  it  is  quite  likely  that 
Robert  le  Fitzwilliam  le  Moigne  had  a  nearer  view 
than  was  conducive  to  health  of  mind  and  body  of 
that  realistic  but  disastrous  picture.  However,  what- 
ever was  left  of  him  after  that  Scottish  triumph,  the 
moat  round  his  Essex  home  still  remained  :  it  was 
still  there  in  its  fulness  when,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Seventh,  the  heiress  of  the  house,  Joan  le  Moigne, 
married  William  Gent,  and  when,  after  a  due 


•T'^A 


MOYN'S  COURT 


MOYN'S  PARK  167 

succession  of  birth,  life,  death,  and  marriage,  Moyn's 
Park,  as  it  is  now  called,  passed,  in  a  measure 
disfranchised,  but  still  moated,  to  the  family  of  the 
last  name.  Gent  is  referred  to. 

It  is  the  vulgar  abbreviation  of  what  Oliver 
Cromwell  used  to  call  a  fine  name,  and  a  typically 
English  one,  too, — expressly  stating  at  the  same  time 
the  necessary  proviso  that  the  proper  meaning  of  the 
word  "  gentleman  "  should  be  thoroughly  understood — 
to  say  nothing  of  being  marked,  learned,  and  forthwith 
embodied  in  conduct.  William,  of  this  ilk,  did  not 
do  much  in  stirring  times  in  the  way  of  love  or  war, 
except  to  watch  England  in  a  turmoil  from  the  safe 
vantage-ground  of  a  water-girdled  homestead.  But 
Thomas  Gent,  who  succeeded  him,  made  amends 
ample ;  and  by  his  addition  to  Moyn's  of  its  noble 
west  front,  created  at  the  same  moment  a  monument 
of  what  Tudor  architects  were  capable  of  doing,  when 
the  God  had  fallen  upon  them  and  they  were  given  an 
opportunity,  and  furthermore  imposed  a  floating  debt 
of  everlasting  gratitude  which  all  Englishmen  who  love 
architecture  can  never  hope  to  repay.  The  highest 
expectation  raised  by  description  or  illustration  will 
not  be  disappointed  by  the  first  view  of  Moyn's 
Park's  noble  west  front.  It  will  always  be  viewed 
in  a  grateful  silence. 

It  in  truth  grandly  represents  in  stone  the  spacious 
days  of  great  Elizabeth — or,  to  speak  more  correctly, 
in  that  brick-work  of  which  lasting  and  essentially 
English  material  so  many  of  these  moated  houses 
are  built.  Memories  of  some  other  houses  of  the 
kind  are  suggested  when  the  first  view  is  caught  of 


168  MOATED  HOUSES 

Thomas  Gent's  superb  addition.     Melford  in  Suffolk, 
to  name  one  example,  recurs  at  once  to  the  memory. 
But  the  Essex  house  now  under  consideration  shows 
a  rich  picturesqueness  of  outline  which  even  Melford 
cannot    surpass,    and   to   which   its    richly    moulded 
chimneys,    rising    in    artistically    clustering     stacks, 
potently  ministers.     That  moment  of  supreme  inven- 
tion which  the  French  call  bien  etre  must  have  fallen 
upon  the  Elizabethan  artist  as  he  took  this  work  in 
hand.     The  golden  environments  of  the  nation's  life, 
under  which  he  worked  to  such  a  fine  issue,  urged 
him,  though  unconsciously,  forward   to  this  splendid 
result.     The  west  front  of  Moyn's  was  designed  and 
built  when  England,  under  the  imperceptible  guidance 
of  a  benevolent  despotism,  had  begun  to  awaken  to 
the  heart-stirring  sense  that  she  had,  after  a  long  and 
painful  travail,  been  born  again.     The  Renaissance 
was    making   its   presence   felt    in    a  hundred   ways. 
Copernicus,    Galileo,    Spenser,    Sir    Philip    Sidney, 
Raleigh,  and  Shakespeare  were  not  in  their  diverse 
and  supreme  ways  greater  tokens  and  outcomes  of 
its  inspiring  influence,   than   that  outburst  of  archi- 
tectural enthusiasm   begotten  by  the  growth  of  art, 
brought  forth  by  the  knowledge  of  a  national  security, 
and  resulting  in  the  springing  into  existence,  as  if  at 
the  wave  of  an  enchanter's  wand,  of  those  innumerable 
specimens  of  great  houses  all  over  the  country,  which 
have  been  rightly  called  the  stately  homes  of  England. 
Of  these  Moyn's  Park  may  indisputably  rank  among 
the  first. 

Let  us  consider  the  author  of  its  final  glories,  Sir 
Thomas  Gent,  the  builder  of  the  superb  west  front. 


MOYNS  COURT 


MOYN'S  PARK  i;i 

He  was  the  only  son  of  William  Gent  by  Agnes, 
coheiress  of  Thomas  Carr  of  Great  Thurlow,  Suffolk. 
Like  very  many  eminent  men  whose  names  are 
mentioned  in  these  pages,  he  was  educated  at 
Cambridge,  but  left  that  University  without  taking 
the  trouble  to  repay  the  labour  tutors  had  lavished 
on  him  by  taking  a  degree.  None  of  the  owners  of 
these  moated  houses  who  had  been  sent  to  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  seem  to  have  thought  it  necessary  to 
fulfil  this  formality.  Corpus  Christi  was  the  scene 
of  Thomas  Gent's  studious  inactivity — if  indeed  he 
studied  anything  at  all,  except  the  social  life  of  the 
University,  and  its  agreeable  contrast  with  the 
restrained  life  of  the  Moyn's  Park  home.  Thomas 
had  some  eminent  imitators  of  his  unstudious  steps. 
Lord  Chancellors  of  England  have  adorned  the 
Woolsack  in  spite  of  having  been  "  ploughed "  three 
times  for  "  Smalls,"  and  the  advantages  or  the  reverse 
of  a  public  school  and  University  education  are 
as  debatable  points  now  as  they  were  in  the 
days  of  Elizabeth.  Yet  the  Law  all  the  same, 
and  what  is  more,  eminence  in  it  too,  was  the  goal 
of  young  Thomas  Gent's  ambition,  and  it  was  a  goal 
which,  directly  he  left  the  place  to  which  he  had  been 
sent  to  study,  he  studiously  kept  in  view.  His  rise 
was  a  rapid  one.  He  entered  at  the  Middle  Temple, 
and  soon  cast  his  eager  eyes  on  his  first  brief.  The 
times  were  fat  ones  for  lawyers.  Conspiracies  were 
in  the  air,  or  in  the  immediate  process  of  manufacture. 
And  the  year  which  is  marked  in  history  as  the  year 
of  the  Ridolfi  Plot  gave  Thomas  his  first  push  for- 
ward on  that  laborious  legal  path  which  leads  through 


I72  MOATED  HOUSES 

dingy  courts  and  quaint  quadrangles  to  gout  and  glory. 
As  the  Italian  Conspirator,  or  Provoking  Agent, 
was  stealing  up  the  Duke  of  Norfolk's  staircase  at 
twelve  o'clock  at  night  to  draw  from  that  fatuous 
nobleman  what  he  called  something  in  writing, 
Thomas  executed  an  ingenious  side  step,  and  slipped 
into  the  post  of  Steward  of  all  the  Courts  of  Edward 
de  Vere,  Earl  of  Oxford.  There  were  some  pickings 
to  be  found  here,  it  may  be  well  understood ;  and  it 
is  no  matter  of  surprise  that  the  same  year  rewarded 
Thomas  for  these  forensic  gleanings  with  a  seat  in 
Parliament  for  Maiden.  From  this  latter  point  of 
vantage  the  rising  lawyer  listened  the  year  after  to  a 
long  string  of  invective,  half  sincere  and  half  assumed, 
with  which  a  Protestant  Queen  (who  did  not  really 
know  whether  she  was  a  Protestant  or  an  Agnostic 
or  a  Catholic,  or  all  three  combined  in  an  illogical 
confusion)  greeted  the  news  of  the  Massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  Sir  Francis  Walsingham  was  the 
English  Ambassador  in  Paris  when  this  dark  event 
took  place.  And  he  was  not  only  an  eye-witness  of 
the  horrors  of  that  tremendous  night,  but  the 
remembrance  of  them  probably  did  much  to  prompt 
him  to  that  long  series  of  underground  dealings  against 
the  Catholics  whose  full  ramifications  will  probably 
never  be  entirely  traced,  and  in  which  the  rising  young 
lawyer  of  Moyn's  Park  was  to  materially  assist. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  Thomas  Gent's  footsteps 
on  the  path  of  ambition  begin  to  sink  in  doubtful 
ground.  Walsingham  had  by  now  perfected  his 
system  of  Secret  Service.  In  his  eyes  every  Catholic 
was  a  conspirator  till  he  had  evaded  a  police  trap  or 


Jgp?x^ 

arJ^ftn-rj  jf.-y::^ 

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H 

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-;         O 


MOYN'S  PARK  175 

offered  himself  as  a  spy.  The  master  of  Moyn's  Park 
was  one  of  Walsingham's  right-hand  men.  There 
was  dirty  work  to  be  done  :  it  seems  clear  that,  seeing 
preferment  beckoning,  he  did  it.  It  will  be  best  for 
his  own  sake  to  skip  some  of  Thomas  Gent's  legal 
services,  through  a  period  when,  so  far  as  Catholics 
were  concerned,  Justice  lay  prostrate — a  period  which 
was  only  ended  by  that  national  call  to  arms  when 
the  best  Catholic  blood  in  England  was  seen  manning 
those  pinnaces  which,  with  the  south-west  wind  and 
fire-ships  to  help  them,  shattered  the  Invincible 
Armada.  What  has  been  called  the  Jesuit  Invasion 
by  the  most  brilliant  and  inaccurate  of  all  historians, 
paved  the  way  to  the  Association  framed  to  protect 
the  Queen's  life.  That  life  was  for  the  most  part 
threatened  by  enthusiasts  who  needed  medical  treat- 
ment, or  by  moonstruck  boys  in  want  of  the  birch- 
rod.  But  Thomas  Gent  had  a  hand  in  the  framing 
of  this  protective  measure,  and  it  paved  the  way  to 
his  elevation  to  the  dignity  of  a  Serjeant-at-Law.  A 
two  years'  constant  attention  to  the  secret  directions 
of  the  same  subdolous  master  ( Walsingham  is  meant), 
resulted  in  Thomas  Gent  finding  himself  a  Baron  of 
the  Exchequer.  It  also  saw  him  sitting  in  judgment 
on  the  Babington  Conspirators.  His  inquisitorial 
if  not  judicial  eye  now  had  the  opportunity  of  resting 
on  a  batch  of  as  certain  victims  to  the  art  of  the 
Provoking  Agent  as  can  be  found  at  random  in  the 
whole  record  of  English  history.  Sir  Thomas  Gent 
said  nothing  on  this  historic  occasion.  Either  he 
had  a  bad  cold  and  was  not  heard  by  the  Elizabethan 
reporters,  or  a  previous  and  private  knowledge  of 


i;6  MOATED  HOUSES 

that  preposterous  affair  suggested  a  discreet  silence. 
He  had  been  active  enough  in  the  matter  before  it 
came  to  a  head,  or  he  would  not  have  been  seated 
where  he  was  sitting ;  nor  the  year  after,  would  a 
special  exemption  have  been  made  in  his  favour  of 
33  Hen.  vm  c.  24.  Why  should  a  statute  which 
properly  forbade  a  Judge  from  acting  as  a  Justice  of 
Assize  in  his  own  county,  have  been  repealed 
expressly  for  the  benefit  of  this  newly  made  Baron 
of  the  Exchequer?  What  faithful  services  in  a 
dubious  cause  brought  this  strange  exemption  follow- 
ing fast  in  the  wake  of  judicial  honours  ?  I  fear  that 
some  dirty  work  had  to  be  done  in  Essex  which 
needed  a  callous  conscience  and  a  well-filled  purse. 
I  think  we  had  better  turn  from  Sir  Thomas  Gent's 
life,  which  ended  at  Moyn's  Park  in  January  1593, 
and  once  more  fall  to  admiration  of  his  building. 

And  of  his  gardens !  These  are  especially 
beautiful.  Even  in  these  days  of  innovation  every 
decoration  in  them  seems  new,  and  yet  dates  back  to 
the  age  of  Elizabeth.  The  flat  site  of  Moyn's  Park 
— for  the  estate  with  its  park  of  200  acres  lies  on  a 
perfect  level — gave  ample  opportunity  for  the  land- 
scape gardeners  of  those  days, — who  did  not  rely  for 
their  effects  on  grass  slopes  artificially  produced. 
Hence  at  Moyn's  the  beauty  of  a  garden  laid  out  on 
a  perfect  level,  is  to  be  seen  to  perfection.  Pleasaunce 
is  the  more  fitting  name  for  the  place.  Ample  spaces 
of  trim  lawn  spread  themselves  evenly.  Immemorial 
yews  cast  a  shade  at  properly  calculated  distances,  to 
give  the  saunterer  an  idea  of  what  the  flight  of  time 
means ;  and  they  are  yews  all  cut  into  quaint  and 


MOYN'S  COURT 


MOYN'S  PARK  179 

antique  shapes.  No  such  pollution  as  a  gravel  walk 
desecrates  this  old-world  refuge  from  the  cares  of  life. 
Grass  paths  are  properly  the  only  paths  fit  for  a 
connoisseur  in  gardens  to  walk  upon,  and  grass  paths, 
be  it  well  understood,  planted  according  to  the  pre- 
scription of  Lord  Bacon.  Sweet-smelling  herbs 
reward  every  foot-pressure  with  fragrance.  An 
admirable  bowling-green,  most  carefully  kept,  com- 
pletes the  harmonious  picture ;  and  suggests  the 
advantages  of  a  revival  of  an  old-world  game  of 
leisurely  skill,  if  only  to  divert  the  hot-headed  rising 
generation  from  throwing  bowls  at  any  institution 
whose  overthrow  they  fatuously  think  might  be  a 
medium  for  making  money. 

No  suggestion,  however,  of  the  imminent  revolu- 
tion or  of  the  Socialist  Kingdom  of  Saints,  has 
touched  Moyn's  Park  as  yet.  Both  the  old  house 
and  its  quiet  and  beautiful  surroundings  reflect  the 
golden  age  when  England  was  merry  under  the 
wisely  guiding  hand  of  a  practically  paternal  Govern- 
ment. They  represent  the  spirit  both  of  Elizabethan 
order  and  of  Elizabethan  ornament.  And  as  a  para- 
mount, and  it  is  to  be  hoped  an  indestructible 
monument  of  those  times,  the  noble  west  front  towers. 


XIV 
HELMINGHAM  HALL 


THE  two  drawbridges  at  Helmingham  are 
raised  every  night,  and  local  rumour  alleges 
that  they  have  been  put  to  this  use  for  which 
drawbridges  were  intended,  every  night  since  the 
times  of  William  the  Conqueror.  This,  however, 
must  be  considered  a  chronological  attempt  to  strain 
at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a  camel,  or,  to  apply  the 
parallel  more  locally,  to  fix  the  age  of  a  house  from 
the  doubtful  date  of  the  moat  which  surrounds  it. 
The  moat,  however,  is  no  doubt  the  principal  feature 
of  Helmingham.  It  is  broad,  brimming,  spanned  by 
two  stone  bridges  of  two  arches  each,  each  bridge 
ending  on  the  side  nearest  the  house  in  a  wooden 
structure  which  can  be  raised  or  lowered.  But  the 
house  itself,  formerly  of  red  brick,  but  now  covered 
with  stucco,  which  the  moat  washes  on  four  sides, 
comprises  no  portion  of  architecture  of  an  earlier 
period  than  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

It  is  perhaps  from  the  disappointment  of  seeing  the 
only  two  workable  drawbridges  in  England  attached 

to   a    moated   house   of  so   comparatively   speaking 

1  80 


HELMINGHAM    HALL 


HELMINGHAM  HALL  181 

recent  a  date,  as  well  as  from  a  certain  meretricious 
effect  lent  by  the  application  of  stucco  to  red  brick, 
that  the  feeling  inspired  by  the  first  sight  of  Helming- 
ham  is  one  of  disillusionment.  It  looks  so  bran  new. 
Everything  about  it  (from  the  white  mullions  of  the 
windows,  to  the  glistening  gables  which  seem  to  have 
enjoyed  a  recent  application  of  Monkey  Brand  soap) 
is  so  spic  and  span  and  stainless,  that  an  uncomfort- 
able feeling  suggests  itself  to  the  spectator,  that  he 
is  viewing  an  elaborate  imitation  of  an  English 
moated  house,  with  the  moat  full  of  real  water,  and 
two  drawbridges  guaranteed  workable,  made  in 
America,  and  shipped  from  some  World's  Fair  in 
Chicago.  Every  detail  of  a  representation  meant  to 
be  complete  is  almost  obtrusively  conspicuous  ;  from 
a  shine  about  the  house  itself,  which  almost  looks 
like  veneer,  to  the  great  flocks  of  wild-fowl  which 
swim  about  the  moat  with  a  confident  security  so 
unnatural  that  they  will  take  food  from  a  stranger's 
hand.  The  oldest-looking  things  about  the  place 
indeed  are  the  oaks  in  the  park.  These  comprise 
some  of  the  finest  specimens  of  our  national  tree  in 
Suffolk.  Yet  these  thrive  in  broad  acres  to  which  an 
artificial  touch  is  given  by  the  presence  of  certain  red 
deer,  who  ought  never  to  be  seen  so  near  a  dwelling 
of  man.  They  too,  by  their  unnatural  calm  at  the 
approach  of  a  stranger,  look  as  if  they  had  been 
tamed  for  show  purposes.  And  so,  in  spite  of  Henry 
the  Eighth,  the  long  occupation  by  distinguished 
owners,  a  moat  full  of  water,  two  drawbridges  nightly 
in  use,  and  other  accessaries  which  should  inspire 
archaeological  delight,  Helmingham  as  a  moated 


1 82  MOATED  HOUSES 

house  fails  to  stir  the  fancy.     A  modern  touch  seems 
everywhere  to  make  itself  felt. 

It  seems  in  keeping,  therefore,  after  this  preamble, 
and  a  natural  deduction  from  it,  that  an  episode  of 
modern  times  should  be  responsible  for  the  most 
interesting  page  in  the  history  of  a  house  which  was 
built  when  Henry  the  Eighth  ruled  England  :  that  is 
to  say,  if  the  term  Modern  Times  may  be  applied,  in 
these  headlong  days,  to  those  Georgian  days  when 
people  did  not  go  so  fast  ahead  as  they  do  now, — 
though  Louis  the  Sixteenth  lost  his  ;  and  Edmund 
Burke,  by  his  frenzied  letters  on  "  A  Regicide  Peace," 
was  supposed  by  political  opponents  to  have  brought 
himself  (mentally  speaking,  in  this  case)  to  a  similar 
condition.  We  are  far  enough  here  from  Bluff  King 
Hal's  merry  England,  and  from  the  days  when  moats 
were  essential  features  in  architects'  plans  of  gentle- 
men's country  seats.  We  breathe  the  atmosphere  of 
a  different  kind  of  French  War  than  that  which  earlier 
inhabitants  of  Helmingham  and  other  moated  houses 
of  the  period  waged  in  Tudor  armour  and  accoutre- 
ments on  that  field  of  Guinegatte,  better  known  as 
the  Battle  of  the  Spurs.  We  have  left  the  year  1513 
far  behind  us,  and  with  it  the  military  uniform  now 
worn  by  the  Yeomen  of  the  Guard.  The  inevitable 
French  War  is  still  in  progress  :  but  bagwigs  are  seen 
in  the  enemies'  trenches,  instead  of  crested  helmets  ; 
and  imminent  deadly  breaches  are  mounted  by  smooth- 
faced gallants  in  full-bottomed  coats.  And  so,  in 
spite  of  the  fine  collection  of  armour  in  the  great  hall 
with  its  suggestion  of  mediaeval  strife,  the  military 
story  of  Helmingham  is  as  recent  as  is  the  look  of 


HELMINGHAM  HALL  183 

the  house  from  which  it  flows.  We  have  left  the 
Middle  Ages  far  behind  us,  and  have  arrived  at  the 
days  of  Georges  and  Puddings ;  of  a  London 
lighted  by  torches ;  of  drowsy  watchmen  bawling  the 
hour ;  of  chairmen  staggering  under  the  weight  of 
sedan  chairs. 

But  there  is  compensation  in  everything,  even  in 
the  matter  of  country  houses.  And  so,  though  the 
aspect  of  Helmingham  Hall  conveys  the  impression 
of  a  skilfully  made  modern  model  of  an  old  house,  and 
though  its  most  interesting  story  is  dated  in  the  days 
when  Edmund  Burke,  that  greatest  of  all  orators,  was 
telling  Europe  that  the  age  of  chivalry  was  dead,  and 
that  the  age  of  sophisters  and  economists  and  calcu- 
lators had  succeeded  it  (What  of  our  Labour  Party 
and  our  Social  Democratic  Federation  ?),  the  story 
itself,  with  its  sombre  suggestion  of  a  Nemesis  brood- 
ing over  a  fated  house,  takes  on  a  classic  tinge  :  seems, 
in  spite  of  its  modern  dress  and  over-refined  and 
artificial  environments,  to  be  charged  to  the  full  with 
the  very  spirit  of  the  Antique. 

The  story  of  Helmingham,  then,  or  rather,  that 
striking  episode  closing  a  long  series  of  common- 
place chapters,  consists  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  family 
prophecy.  Its  origin,  like  that  of  all  such  provincial 
imprecations  not  taken  down  in  the  shorthand  of  the 
day,  is  obscure.  But  it  was  probably  uttered  by  one 
of  those  miserable  old  women  who  were  called  witches 
in  those  luminous  days  when  tar-barrels  still  blazed 
on  hilltops,  ducking-stools  were  in  constant  demand, 
and  James  the  First  reeled  nightly  on  his  throne.  It 
is  probable  that  the  combined  effects  of  a  constant 


1 84  MOATED  HOUSES 

persecution,  a  perpetual  boycott,  the  application  of 
red-hot  pincers,  an  unsatiable  thirst  for  revenge,  and 
a  certain  magnetism,  which  is  now  for  the  first  time 
beginning  to  be  understood,  had  ended  by  endowing 
these  poor  women  with  a  power  approaching 
the  hypnotic.  No  other  explanation  will  account 
for  the  influence  these  unfortunate  people  must  in 
certain  moments  have  had,  unless  every  judge  on  the 
English  Bench  is  to  be  labelled  as  a  barbarian,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  whole  counties,  perjurers  from  their 
mothers'  wombs.  Matthew  Hale,  the  Lord-Chief- 
Justice,  was  not  an  estimable,  nor  for  that  matter  was 
the  author  of  the  Novum  Organum.  But  neither  of 
them  can  be  labelled  fools,  and  both  believed  in 
witches.  With  this  key  to  the  mystery  in  hand,  what 
happened  in  English  villages  every  day  and  was 
accounted  supernatural,  is  easily  explained.  Edmund 
Kean's  glance  in  Macbeth  once  turned  one  of  his 
audience  faint  in  a  crowded  theatre.  Six  years  after- 
wards the  same  glance  turned  the  same  spectator 
faint  in  a  London  tavern.  But  the  victim  of  that 
baleful  look  had  not  the  faintest  idea  that  the  man 
who  was  looking  at  him  was  Edmund  Kean.  Call  it 
the  hypnotic  glance,  or,  as  the  Italians  do,  the  "  evil 
eye,"  this  is  the  faculty  which  brought  many  a  poor 
old  woman  to  the  faggot  and  tar-barrel  on  many  an 
English  common  or  village  green.  Miss  or  Madam 
from  the  Hall  came  riding  by.  The  reputation  of  some 
poverty-stricken  wretch  was  known  at  the  Hall,  and 
had  been  discussed  there.  At  sight  of  the  bent  and 
crouching  subject  of  those  after-dinner  diatribes,  Miss 
or  Madam  avert  a  frightened  or  disdainful  head,  but 


Oriel   window 


in 


HELMINGHAM    HALL 


HELMINGHAM  HALL  187 

not  before  a  glance  flaming  with  hatred  and  magnetism 
has  struck  them.  Miss  or  Madam  turn  sick.  They 
ride  back  to  the  Hall,  and  mope  and  pine,  perhaps 
become  hypochondriacs.  But  the  nervous  system  was 
not  understood  in  those  days,  and  the  family  doctor 
delivers  this  as  a  diagnosis:  "They  have  been  over- 
looked." All  hands  at  once  manned  the  tar-barrel. 

That  people  are  to  be  found  in  most  English 
countrysides  who  still  possess  the  power,  which  in 
ignorance  and  superstition  was  called  witchcraft  in 
days  gone  by,  will  not  be  denied  by  anyone  who  has 
taken  the  trouble  to  be  inquisitive  in  the  matter ;  who 
has  had  the  opportunity  of  travel  in  out-of-the-way 
parts  of  the  country  ;  and  has  remembered  or  written 
down  in  a  diary  what  he  has  seen.  Nor  are  names 
carrying  undeniable  authority  wanting  to  support  this 
view  of  a  strange  case.  Curiosity  in  the  matter 
impelled  the  great  Balzac,  staggering  on  to  his  goal 
as  he  was,  under  the  ever  accumulating  burden  of 
his  Comedie  H^lmaine,  to  pause  from  that  giant's 
labour,  and,  after  consulting  every  authority  on 
an  obscure  subject,  to  commit  himself  to  a  prolonged 
tour  of  investigation,  which  ended  in  his  finding  what 
our  ancestors  called  witchcraft,  or  the  people  who  in 
those  days  would  have  been  accused  of  practising  it, 
flourishing  and  rampant  in  every  department  of 
France.  The  genius  that  forecast  the  discoveries  of 
Cuvier,  defined  what  he  had  seen  as  magnetism,  but 
as  a  personal  form  of  it  which,  almost  as  a  necessity 
confined  to  poorly-fed  and  ignorant  people,  who  from 
the  very  conditions  of  their  surroundings,  and  their 
total  inability  to  read,  write,  or  exhaust  their  will 


1 88  MOATED  HOUSES 

power  in  any  other  way,  concentrated  it  with  an 
energy  which  produced  surprising  results,  on  thought 
reading,  palmistry,  prophecies,  and  attendant 
mysteries  which  savants  of  James  the  First  and 
earlier  days  classed  under  Demonology. 

It  was  in  all  likelihood  the  result  of  one  of  these 
nervous  paroxysms  of  an  old  woman  who  had  been  badly 
treated,  which  affected,  or  is  supposed  to  have  fatally 
affected,  the  fortunes  of  the  Tollemaches.  The  look 
with  which  the  curse  was  accompanied  may  have  had 
some  such  directly  physical  effect  on  the  recipient  as 
has  been  already  described.  He  made  for  Helming- 
ham  Hall  at  all  events  as  fast  as  his  horse's  legs  could 
carry  him,  and  said  nothing  whatever  about  the 
salutation  he  had  just  received  on  a  country  road,  and 
which  had  banned  his  house  to  the  sixth  generation. 
What  was  said  by  the  wayside  prophetess  is  not 
exactly  known,  nor  the  precise  period  of  history  at 
which  she  uttered  her  curse.  The  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second  is,  however,  supposed  to 
be  the  date  of  a  denunciation  which  has  been  reduced, 
in  the  process  of  handing  down  from  one  generation 
of  village  gossips  to  another,  to  this  final  form  :  "  The 
House  of  Tollemache  will  always  be  unfortunate."  Had 
this  really  represented  the  full  scope  of  the  curse,  "  Bad 
luck  to  you  "  would  in  all  probability  have  served  the 
witch's  purpose  without  any  further  waste  of  tissue 
or  words.  But  that  something  more  than  this  im- 
memorial formula  bringing  on  disaster  was  ventured 
on  the  occasion,  was  proved  by  the  fact  of  the  family's 
singular  abstention  from  the  military  or  naval  service 
for  a  considerable  lapse  of  years.  Disposition  or 


HELMINGHAM  HALL  189 

design  may  have  dictated  this  course  ;  but  it  was  only 
dropped  after  a  lapse  of  time  which  seemed  to  promise 
immunity  from  further  peril.  The  Tollemaches  re- 
mained undistinguished,  and  they  remained  also  un- 
harmed. Soldier  and  sailor  served  their  country 
without  attaining  to  any  special  glory,  or  coming  to 
any  noticeable  grief.  The  curse  was  such  a  long  time 
falling  that  it  was  supposed  at  last  to  have  fallen,  and 
missed  its  mark. 

Nemesis,  however,  we  are  told,  arrives  though 
she  walks  with  lame  feet.  This  village  malediction, 
though  it  was  much  behind  time,  came  at  last.  It 
came  in  the  days  when  the  First  Congress  in  America 
and  the  skirmish  at  Concord  paved  the  way  to  the  war 
between  England  and  her  Colonies  and  the  battle  of 
Bunker's  Hill.  In  that  year  fruitful  with  disgrace  to 
English  statesmanship,  a  son  and  heir  was  born  to 
Helmingham  Hall,  who  from  his  very  earliest  years 
gave  the  utmost  promise  of  future  distinction.  He 
was  born  on  the  loth  day  of  November  1774.  He 
was  the  son  of  the  Honourable  Captain  John  Tolle- 
mache  of  the  Royal  Navy,  and  Lady  Bridges  Henley, 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Northington,  and  he  was 
named  Lionel  Robert.  The  disinclination  of  the 
Tollemaches  to  military  or  naval  service,  engendered 
it  is  supposed  by  some  fell  suggestion  in  the  witch's 
prophecy,  in  time  passed  away.  This  fact  is  evidenced 
by  the  profession  of  the  boy's  father,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fact  that  two  of  his  uncles,  by  name  respectively 
William  and  George,  were,  at  the  time  of  his  birth, 
also  serving  their  country  under  the  White  Ensign. 
The  growth  of  young  Lionel  Tollemache  to  man's 


I9o  MOATED  HOUSES 

estate  was  marked  by  a  proficiency  in  every  study 
and  pursuit  which  he  embraced,  and  to  this  proficiency 
was  joined  a  charm  and  a  distinction  of  manner  which 
made  him  a  county  idol  for  miles  round.  He  seems 
indeed  to  have  attained  to  that  sort  of  universal 
respect  and  popularity  which  had  been  gained  by  the 
eldest  son  of  James  the  First,  before  that  career 
promising  so  brilliantly  was  so  suddenly  cut  off  under 
circumstances  which  still  reek  of  suspicion.  With 
youth  at  the  prow,  and  assiduity  instead  of  pleasure 
at  the  helm,  all  promised  well  for  Lionel  Tollemache 
through  life,  when  he  surprised  his  friends  and 
relations  by  the  announcement  that  he  was  going  to 
serve  his  King  and  country  on  shore.  The  Tolle- 
maches  had  mostly  inclined  to  the  sea  service,  and 
the  father  and  two  uncles  had  already  distinguished 
themselves  in  it.  It  was  at  this  very  moment  when 
the  son  and  heir  of  the  house  had  announced  his 
intention  of  becoming  a  soldier  that  disaster  ap- 
proached Helmingham  Hall  with  hurrying  feet,  and  the 
family  curse  spoken  so  many  years  ago  that  it  had  come 
to  be  forgotten,  worked  to  a  relentless  fulfilment. 

With  the  kindly  intention  of  encouraging  a  nervous 
young  midshipman,  the  Honourable  Captain  George 
Talbot,  one  of  the  young  Lionel's  uncles,  went  up  to 
the  masthead  of  the  Modeste  man-of-war,  as  Nelson 
was  to  do  in  after  days,  and  for  the  same  kindly 
purpose.  The  sea  was  as  smooth  as  a  mill-pond. 
Novice  and  captain  made  the  ascent  in  safety,  and  the 
captain  was  in  the  very  act  of  telling  his  midshipman 
that  he  had  now  proved  by  practical  demonstration 
the  utter  absence  of  danger  in  the  feat,  when  a  fit  or 


HELMINGHAM  HALL  191 

some  sudden  attack  of  dizziness  seized  him,  and  he  fell 
from  the  mizzen-top  on  to  the  deck  below  and  died  in 
a  minute.  This  was  the  first  stroke  of  the  family  fate. 

The  second  followed  with  a  swiftness  equally  with- 
out remorse.  The  fact  of  England's  being  at  the 
moment  at  war  with  her  Colonies,  may  perhaps  permit  it 
to  be  said  that  Lionel's  father  perished  in  the  service  of 
his  country,  since  his  antagonist  in  a  fatal  duel  in  New 
York  was  what  was  then  called  one  of  the  American 
rebels.  Words  were  exchanged  over  wine  at  a  chance 
meeting  :  politics  pushed  aside  tavern  talk  :  swords 
were  drawn,  and  a  thrust  in  segoon  proved  instantly 
fatal  to  the  Honourable  John  Tollemache,  who  had 
not  crossed  swords  with  his  opponent  for  more  than 
two  minutes  before  he  lay  dead  upon  the  floor.  The 
tide  of  the  house's  calamity  now  seemed  to  be  at  full ; 
but  its  fatal  blow  had  not  reached  the  mark  ap- 
pointed yet.  It  took  the  immediately  successive  form 
of  a  hurricane  in  the  Atlantic  of  such  tremendous  force 
as  to  whip  the  masts  out  of  His  Majesty's  frigate 
Repulse,  and  send  her  to  the  bottom  with  every  soul  on 
board,  including  the  Honourable  William  Tollemache, 
the  young  heir  of  Helmingham's  sole  surviving  uncle. 

These  three  successive  blows  of  Fate  left  young 
Lionel  Robert  the  last  male  representative  of  his  race, 
and  they  found  him  at  the  same  time  about  to  enter 
the  Army.  He  obtained  an  ensign's  commission  in  the 
first  regiment  of  foot-guards  in  1791,  undeterred  by 
the  ominous  working  out  of  the  family  curse  upon  his 
house,  but,  as  after  events  showed,  not  unmindful  of  it. 
Omens  of  the  evil  coming  on  assailed  him  from  his 
first  entrance  into  the  Army.  But  his  constant  and 


I92  MOATED  HOUSES 

ominous  remark  that  a  soldier's  fate  was  "to  be  one 
night  in  the  paraphernalia  of  dress,  and  the  next  in  a 
winding  sheet,"  neither  kept  him  from  a  diligent  and 
scientific  devotion  to  the  profession  in  which  it  was 
prophesied  on  all  sides  that  he  would  excel,  or  from 
the  affection  and  devotion  of  his  brother-officers  and 
the  whole  of  the  rank  and  file.  He  entered  the  Army 
in  stirring  times,  filled  with  the  cries  of  revolution,  and 
big  with  the  prospects  of  war.  Two  years  after  he  had 
joined  the  colours,  the  knife  of  the  guillotine  fell  on  the 
neck  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth.  The  invectives  of  Burke 
at  last  roused  England  to  her  danger.  And  amidst  a 
panic  in  which  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended, 
and  bareheaded  citizens  rushed  about  London  streets 
drinking  gin  out  of  tumblers  and  bawling  out  that  the 
world  was  at  an  end,  the  first  regiment  of  foot-guards 
sailed  for  Flanders,  and  Ensign  Lionel  Robert  Tolle- 
mache  with  it. 

The  military  capacity  of  the  English  commander 
was  not  an  excessive  proportion — nor  was  the  siege 
of  Valenciennes  a  military  undertaking  which  has  left 
its  mark  on  the  annals  of  strategy.  Some  ill-designed 
trenches  were  opened  round  the  town,  and  their  com- 
pletion was  celebrated  by  a  casual  and  ill-directed 
cannonade.  The  fire  of  the  garrison  was  equally 
faulty  in  aim.  During  the  whole  month  of  July  1794 
only  a  very  few  casualties  occurred  in  the  English 
lines.  But  amongst  them  one  officer  was  returned  as 
killed,  and  only  one.  His  death  was  due  to  the 
bursting  of  a  chance  bomb  fired  by  a  desultory  garrison 
for  practice  more  than  for  anything  else.  The  officer's 
name  was  Ensign  Lionel  Robert  Tollemache. 


XV 
BADDESLEY  CLINTON 

A  SECLUDED  and  richly  wooded  park,  a 
beautiful  domestic  chapel  within  the  walls, 
a  Catholic  church  dedicated  to  St.  Francis 
on  the  park's  verge,  and  a  convent  of  Poor  Clares  with 
a  village  school  attached,  help  to  give  Baddesley 
Clinton  something  of  a  cloistral  air.  Its  fame  of 
being  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  picturesque  manor- 
houses  in  Warwickshire  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that 
as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Richard  the  Second  a 
family  of  the  name  of  Shakespeare  held  lands  here, 
and  were  in  all  probability  early  ancestors  of  the  poet. 
The  touch  of  a  literary  flavour  thus  early  given  to 
the  surroundings  was  strengthened  in  after  times  by 
the  long  residence  in  the  house  of  a  celebrated  man 
of  letters.  His  name  was  Henry  Ferrers,  and  he  was 
a  well-known  antiquary.  He  was  often  visited  at 
Baddesley  Clinton  by  his  bosom  friends  Camden  and 
Sir  William  Dugdale,  who  were  antiquaries  too ;  and 
a  fitting  air  of  cloistral  seclusion  and  quiet  invests 
the  scene  of  those  literary  discussions  waged  in  a 
spirit  of  friendly  rivalry  three  hundred  years  ago. 
The  grey  sandstone  of  which  the  house  is  built 
lends  a  touch  of  quiet  colour  to  the  green  landscape, 
13 


I94  MOATED  HOUSES 

The  Elizabethan  brick  chimneys  mark  the  date  of 
this  literary  occupation.  The  broad  and  brimming 
moat  shielded  these  savants  at  play,  and  barred 
the  approach  of  the  illiterate.  All  these  factors 
give  colour  to  the  fancy.  The  house  seems  to 
meditate. 

The  moat,  which  is  in  a  perfect  state  of  preserva- 
tion, has  encircled  (as  is  almost  invariably  the  case) 
earlier  buildings  than  those  now  standing,  and 
was  probably  an  ingenious  contrivance  of  Norman 
days.  The  de  Biseges  were  Lords  of  Baddesley  in 
those  stirring  times  when  men  rode  abroad  not  to  re- 
dress human  wrongs  but  to  put  loot  into  their  pockets, 
and  martial  owners  with  such  a  suggestive  name 
would  take  care  that  their  family  seat  was  not  in  a 
condition  to  be  carried  by  a  sudden  assault.  Their  moat, 
however,  remains  their  sole  monument  as  builders. 
For  the  earliest  date  that  can  be  assigned  to  the  oldest 
remaining  parts  of  the  house  is  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  The  de  Clintons  of  Colehill  were 
responsible  for  the  picturesque  beauties  of  the  place 
as  now  seen.  Their  architects  worked  for  them 
during  the  sounding  times  of  the  French  War,  and 
successfully  impressed  their  iron  personalities  on 
Baddesley  while  Henry  the  Sixth  or  his  marshals 
were  vainly  trying  to  impress  their  less  iron  person- 
alities on  France.  Three  years  after  Joan  of  Arc  had 
met  a  martyr-patriot's  doom  on  the  great  pile  raised 
in  the  market-place  of  Rouen,  the  manor  and  the  new 
house  passed  from  the  de  Clintons  into  the  hands  of 
one  Nicholas  Metley.  Nothing  much  is  known  about 
this  new  owner,  but  it  would  seem  that  he  had  done 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON  197 

something  at  some  time  of  his  life  which  he  had  better 
not  have  done,  and  at  the  same  time  had  left  unac- 
complished duties  which  called  loudly  for  performance. 
Whether  he  had  evaded  service  in  the  French  Wars, 
or  had  returned  from  them  after  perpetrating  some 
unusual  act  of  barbarity  or  sacrilege ;  whether  he 
had  become  by  a  deft  stroke  of  the  pen  unlaw- 
fully possessed  of  the  house  in  which  he  died,  or 
had  some  unusually  dark  mediaeval  family  secret 
locked  up  in  his  heart  or  his  money-chest,  can 
never  be  definitely  known.  One  thing,  however, 
is  certain.  When  Nicholas  Metley  saw  the  end 
approaching,  he  thought  fit  to  take  out  some  sort 
of  an  insurance  against  a  possibly  subsequent  event. 
He  disposed  of  the  property  for  the  good  of  his 
soul. 

Twenty-three  years  after  this  an  addition  was 
made  to  the  house  which  still  repays  the  study  of  the 
antiquary,  and  typically  suggests  the  insecurity  of 
the  times.  This  addition,  or  renovation  rather,  took 
the  form  of  the  new  outer  oak  door,  with  its  massive 
hinges  and  wicket,  which,  taken  into  account  with  the 
deep  moat  immediately  adjacent,  gives  modern  visitors 
a  lively  sense  of  the  insecurity  of  their  Catholic 
forefathers  in  the  days  when  England  was  already 
beginning  to  be  deluged  with  the  blood  of  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  when  Bloreheath  led  to  the  temporary 
disbanding  of  the  Yorkist  army,  and  Margaret  of 
Anjou  with  cuisses  on  her  thigh,  gallantly  armed,  fled 
to  Scotland  through  the  long  August  nights  following 
her  decisive  defeat  at  Northampton.  Antiquaries 
offer  reasons  for  concluding  that  the  date  of  this  door's 


I98  MOATED  HOUSES 

erection  at  Baddesley  is  contemporaneous  with  the 
date  of  this  battle.  And  they  can  deal,  if  they  are  to 
be  believed,  in  detail  on  the  points  which  give  rise 
to  the  belief.  Less  practised  observers  will  amuse 
themselves  by  conjuring  up  visions  of  those  departed 
worthies,  who,  looking  abroad  at  a  troubled  England, 
saw  even  darker  days  coming  for  their  own  family 
circle,  and  thought  it  high  time  to  put  a  heavier  door 
on  their  country  house.  The  Earls  of  York  and 
Lancaster  were  entering  London  amidst  the  shouts 
of  the  people  as  the  local  blacksmith's  hammers 
rang  stridently  on  these  massive  hinges.  That 
labour  of  defence  had  need  to  be  hurried.  All 
England  was  rising  in  an  insurrectionary  turmoil  as 
those  greasy  London  citizens  were  throwing  up  their 
caps. 

The  Wars  of  the  Roses  had  become  but  an  un- 
comfortable memory  of  the  past  (except  to  those  who 
had  lost  their  arms  or  legs  in  them),  when  a  doyenne 
appears  upon  the  scene  at  Baddesley.  Her  name  was 
Constance  Brome,  and  by  her  marriage  to  Sir  Edward 
Ferrers  she  carried  this  fine  property  to  that  direct 
descendant  of  the  formidable  Lords  of  Groby  in 
whose  family  it  remains  to  the  present  day.  At  the 
same  time  that  Sir  Edward  Ferrers  discovered  that 
he  loved  Constance  Brome  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
beauties  of  her  ancestral  home,  and  the  suggestive 
massiveness  of  her  iron-clasped  money-chests),  the 
Cornish  Revolt  was  in  full  progress.  Perkin  Warbeck 
was  being  discovered  not  to  be  the  Duke  of  York 
after  losing  his  courage  at  Taunton  ;  and  Sebastian 
Cabot  was  busily  engaged  in  discovering  New- 


"         "  """_  "-Jinfiiniircri1 


j.  ;  -   t 

I  I     *a, rrr- 


BADDESI.EY   CLINTON 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON  201 

foundland.  The  news  of  the  successful  venture  of 
this  Genoese  seaman,  who  was  born  and  bred  in 
England  and  who  had  chosen  Bristol  for  his  point  of 
departure,  would  have  taken  a  long  time  to  reach  the 
seclusion  of  Baddesley  Clinton.  The  rumour  of 
great  events  travelled  slowly  in  those  days,  in  spite  of 
the  pedestrian  efforts  of  the  late  King  Richard  the 
Third's  specially  appointed  post.  The  young  bride 
and  bridegroom  would  have  listened  to  the  news  of 
Cabot's  discoveries  with  composure,  when  after  a 
due  interval  of  months  that  news  had  come  to  their 
hands.  They  would  not  have  realized  where  New- 
foundland was,  Johnston's  Atlas  not  being  in 
circulation  in  those  far-off  days.  Nor  would  they 
have  appreciated  the  prospects  opened  up  by 
Cabot's  inquisitiveness  and  daring  to  an  enormous 
sea  fishery.  What  had  these  good  Catholics  to  do 
with  sea  fisheries  ?  Had  not  Baddesley  Clinton  its 
fish  ponds ! 

Between  the  years  1549  and  1633  a  fuller  stream  of 
story  flowed  through  the  old  house,  and  fell  on  ears 
that  could  hear,  and  transmit  what  they  heard  to  brains 
able  to  appreciate  it.  This  period  indeed  marked  the 
lifetime  of  Henry  Ferrers,  the  antiquary,  whose  literary 
tenure  of  Baddesley  has  already  been  noticed.  His  life 
began,  therefore,  at  the  Protectorate  of  Somerset,  and 
closed  full  of  honour  and  dignity  in  the  year  in  which 
Laud,  fuller  than  ever  of  dreams  and  visions,  and  fright- 
ened out  of  his  life  at  the  sight  of  knives  crossed,  and 
the  fall  of  plates,  succeeded  to  the  See  of  Canterbury, 
and  Milton  gave  the  Allegro  and  the  Penseroso  to  a 
courtly  and  appreciative  world.  In  these  strenuous 


202  MOATED  HOUSES 

times  of  ours  in  which  everybody  seems  to  be  trying 
to  do  nothing  in  particular  as  fast  as  they  are  able, 
with  a  sublime  self-confidence  that  blind  efforts  will 
result  in  permanent  good,  it  is  pleasant  to  think  of 
this  long  life  led  by  Henry  Ferrers,  and  devoted  to 
research  and  letters  in  surroundings  so  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  purpose.  The  thankless  Muse  could 
nowhere  be  more  strictly  meditated  than  beneath  the 
towers  of  Baddesley.  More  than  a  passing  reference 
seems  called  for  to  the  owner,  and  to  his  works  and 
work. 

He  was  born  at  the  beautiful  house  which  he  was 
destined  to  inherit  on  the  26th  of  January  1549. 
His  father's  name  was  Edward  ;  his  mother's  name 
was  Bridget  ;  and  at  the  time  of  his  birth  Somerset's 
protectorate  was  drawing  to  its  close  amidst  scenes  of 
treachery  and  blood.  Religious  revolt  and  agrarian 
discontent  stalked  England  hand  in  hand.  Cornish- 
men  called  the  new  Church  Service  a  Christmas  game. 
Devonshire  took  up  staves  and  cudgels  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Mass.  Near  Norwich  twenty 
thousand  reformers  gathered  round  a  Reformation  tree, 
roared  for  cheap  bread,  the  abolition  of  enclosures, 
and  the  right  of  every  man  to  lie  on  his  back  and  do 
nothing,  and  fought  hand  to  hand  with  a  paralysed 
military.  Scenes  so  little  in  harmony  with  an  anti- 
quary's birth  were  changed  to  serener  surroundings 
when  Henry  Ferrers,  after  a  short  probation  at 
Oxford,  which  was  not  (as  is  so  often  the  case  in  men 
destined  afterwards  to  distinction)  crowned  with  a 
degree,  came  back  to  the  home  of  his  ancestors  and 
settled  down  to  the  long  and  learned  leisure  of  a 


Mid 


BADDESLEY    CLINTON 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON  205 

cultured  life.  Heraldry,  genealogy,  and  antiquities 
were  his  especial  hobbies.  But  he  cultivated  the 
Muses  too  in  his  sedate  way,  and  verses  inspired  by 
wide  culture  and  the  pensive  beauties  of  his  Warwick- 
shire home  appeared  in  many  of  the  leaflets  exposed 
for  sale  on  the  bookstalls  of  Elizabeth's  London.  He 
was,  however,  less  perhaps  an  author  than  an  un- 
tiring collector  of  material.  He  meditated  works 
innumerable,  and  left  others  to  write  them  ;  and  a 
Perambulation  of  Warwickshire,  one  of  his  most 
cherished  designs,  after  a  prolonged  and  anxiously 
watched  labour,  never  came  to  literary  birth.  Ferrers' 
industry  as  a  collector  of  material,  however,  never 
slackened.  His  was  an  untiring  pen,  plunged 
continually  into  incontinent  ink.  And  he  had 
not  been  long  at  Baddesley  before  the  library 
shelves  began  to  groan  under  the  innumerable 
manuscripts  which  now  enrich  the  College  of  Arms, 
the  Sheldonian  Library,  and  the  Ashmolean 
Museum. 

Long,  however,  before  these  literary  treasures  had 
reached  their  final  havens,  they  had  been  placed  at 
the  disposition  of  two  of  Henry  Ferrers'  intimate 
friends.  They  were  both  historians  and  antiquaries 
like  himself;  but  unlike  himself,  they  believed  in 
writing  books  instead  of  only  collecting  material  for 
them.  The  works  of  Camden  must  always  find  a  place 
in  the  nation's  library.  Their  value  may  be  con- 
sidered to  be  largely  due  to  long  researches  among 
the  Baddesley  Manuscripts,  and  to  literary  discussions 
with  their  learned  owner  prolonged  far  into  the  night. 
Camden  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  this  Warwickshire 


206  MOATED  HOUSES 

moated  house.  He  was  two  years  younger  than 
Henry  Ferrers,  and  predeceased  him  by  ten  years. 
The  historian  so  noted  for  his  happy  temper  and 
gentle  disposition  must  always  have  been  found  a 
congenial  guest.  One  can  picture  this  man  of  middle 
height,  and  active  movements,  and  pleasant  ruddy 
face,  poring  over  the  treasures  of  the  Baddesley 
library,  looking  up  eagerly  to  ask  some  question 
of  his  cultured  host,  who  had  been  silently  watch- 
ing him  :  hear  the  genial  laugh  of  the  great 
chronicler  of  Elizabeth's  age,  as  he  and  Henry 
Ferrers  sit  over  the  wine !  The  fine  oak  dining- 
table  of  the  fifteenth  century  has  nobly  ministered 
no  doubt  to  the  zeal  of  these  consulting  his- 
torians. The  afternoon  sun  streams  through 
stained-glass  windows  richly  emblazoned  with  the 
family  arms. 

Another  future  historian  and  antiquary  may  have 
listened  to  one  of  these  conferences  in  the  library  or 
the  dining-hall  of  Baddesley,  though  Camden  would 
only  have  seen  him  as  an  ambitious  and  precocious 
boy.  Camden  died  in  1623.  The  year  before  this 
a  young  gentleman  named  William  Dugdale  showed 
his  precocity  in  other  ways  than  literature,  by  marry- 
ing at  the  age  of  seventeen  to  oblige  a  whimsical 
father,  and  by  buying  a  neighbouring  estate — obviously, 
as  he  was  a  minor,  with  his  wife's  money.  Heraldry 
in  its  highest  forms  was  the  special  hobby  of  this  new 
addition  to  the  literary  circle  over  which  Henry 
Ferrers  mildly  presided,  and  the  novice  soon  turned 
his  knowledge  of  the  subject  to  a  practical  account. 
The  new  squire  of  Blythe  Hall  near  Coleshill,  was  in 


On  riie  53nd6e 
</ 

BADDESLEY   CLINTON 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON  209 

turn  to  become  Banch  Lyon,  Rouge  Croix,  pursuivant, 
Norroy,  till  the  limit  of  heraldic  promotion  had  been 
reached  in  the  appointment  of  Garter  King-of-Arms. 
The  future  Sir  William  Dugdale  had  not  attained  to 
the  first  of  these  honours  when  Camden  died,  or 
when  that  historian's  death  was  followed  ten  years 
after  by  that  of  Henry  Ferrers.  But  between  the 
years  1622  and  1633  he  was  a  constant  visitor  at 
Baddesley  Clinton,  coming  there  as  Camden  had  done 
before  him  for  the  twofold  purposes  of  conviviality 
and  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  and  he  has  left  it  on 
record  that  to  the  stimulating  properties  of  these  visits 
was  due  much  of  his  future  success.  In  writing  his 
Antiquities  of  Warwickshire,  Dugdale  made  copious 
use  of  the  Ferrers  Manuscripts,  and  there  was  little  in 
the  science  of  heraldry  that  he  could  not  learn  from 
the  host  whom  he  himself  described  as  "an  eminent 
antiquary  and  a  man  of  distinguished  reflecting  lustre 
on  the  ancient  and  noble  family  to  which  he  be- 
longed." Dugdale  forms  the  third,  therefore,  of  the 
trio  of  distinguished  men  who  invest  this  Warwick- 
shire moated  house  with  a  potent  and  permanent 
literary  interest.  Of  Henry  Ferrers'  personality  little 
is  known  save  his  reputation  of  being  a  quiet  and 
modest  literary  recluse.  But  of  Dugdale's  blustering 
and  strenuous  nature  vivid  reports  have  been  handed 
down.  Even  in  the  days  of  his  nonage  he  would 
have  paid  small  heed  to  the  maxim  that  little  boys 
should  be  seen  and  not  heard,  and  would  many  times 
have  intruded  boisterously  on  the  quiet  discussions  of 
the  two  more  sedate  savants.  Long  after  Ferrers 
and  Camden  were  dead,  we  see  Dugdale,  then  Sir 
14 


2 16  MOATED  HOUSES 

William,  in  a  very  aggressive  exercise  of  his  heraldic 
duties,  dealing  severely  with  interlopers  who  tried  to 
usurp  his  authority  (and,  what  was  worse,  intercept 
his  emoluments),  tearing  down  the  hatchments  that 
these  designing  persons  had  set  up,  forcibly  resisting 
their  attempts  to  marshal  funerals.  A  later  glimpse 
is  caught  of  him  dining  daily  in  jovial  company  at  a 
Cook's  House  in  the  Tower  of  London  after  mornings 
passed  in  poring  over  its  records.  This  was  as  late 
as  1676.  But  the  researches  at  Baddesley  Clinton 
may  have  come  back  in  such  moments  to  the  memory 
of  the  old  herald.  Nine  years  after,  Evelyn  shows 
him  to  us,  dining  with  the  Earl  of  Clarendon, 
boasting  of  eighty-one  years  and  a  sight  and 
memory  still  perfect.  In  the  following  year  he 
was  found  sitting  in  his  chair  at  Blythe  Hall,  dead. 
Strenuous  to  the  last,  he  had  tarried  too  long  in 
the  meadows  near  his  house.  What  this  old  herald 
was  doing  in  a  wet  meadow  it  is  impossible  to 
conjecture. 

His  death  closed  the  pleasant  lengths  of  Bad- 
desley Clinton's  literary  story.  It  had  run  its  sedate 
course  for  over  sixty  years,  and  had  only  been  inter- 
rupted by  two  domestic  events,  common  ones  to  all 
country  houses  whether  moated  or  not.  In  October 
1582,  Henry  Ferrers  married  Jane,  daughter  and 
coheiress  of  Henry  White,  Esquire  of  Warnborough, 
County  Hants.  This  was  the  year  of  young  Throg- 
morton's  assassination  plot  and  of  the  forming  of  the 
Association  to  protect  Elizabeth's  life.  Four  short 
years  after,  Henry  Ferrers  was  a  widower.  His 
young  wife  (she  was  only  twenty-three  when  she  died) 


\          ' 


Jhc  <>bw 


BADDESLEY   CLINTON 


BADDESLEY  CLINTON  213 

left  him  a  son,  Edward,  and  a  daughter,  Mary. 
While  this  fatality  was  falling  upon  the  happy 
Warwickshire  home,  brutal  London  crowds,  athirst 
for  blood,  and  stimulated  by  the  rumour  that  by 
Elizabeth's  own  orders  every  hideous  detail  of  an 
execution  for  high  treason  was  to  be  carried  out  to 
its  fullest  and  bitterest  limit,  fought  and  cursed 
round  the  streaming  scaffold  of  the  Babington 
Conspirators. 

It  remains  only  to  make  brief  note  of  some  of  the 
architectural  and  domestic  treasures  of  this  Warwick- 
shire moated  house,  through  whose  oak-panelled 
rooms  and  low-ceilinged  corridors  so  peaceful  and  so 
pleasant  a  stream  of  literary  story  has  flowed.  The 
fine  oak  dining-table  of  the  fifteenth  century  has 
already  been  mentioned.  Henry  Ferrers  and  Camden 
have  been  seen  sitting  at  it  over  their  wine.  Oak 
indeed  is  everywhere  in  this  typical  English  home. 
The  dining-room,  the  drawing-room,  nearly  all  the 
bedrooms  are  oak-panelled.  The  whole  house  is 
rich  in  carved  fireplaces,  family  portraits,  and  stained- 
glass  windows.  An  indescribable  air  of  a  rich  anti- 
quity pervades  the  place.  Some  especially  fine 
tapestry  decorates  the  walls  of  the  banqueting  room, 
from  whose  mullioned  and  stained-glass  windows  a 
commanding  view  is  had  of  the  deep  moat  which 
washes  the  house's  walls  on  four  sides.  The  only 
passage  across  this  characteristic  defence  is  on  the 
north-east  side,  over  an  ivy-covered  bridge.  This  is 
a  more  modern  structure,  but  though  it  compares 
unfavourably  with  the  rest  of  the  building,  it  is 
still  in  harmony  with  its  history.  The  history  of 


214  MOATED  HOUSES 

Baddesley  Clinton  has  been  shown  to  be  essen- 
tially a  literary  one.  The  bridge  over  its  moat 
was  built  during  what  is  known  as  the  Augustan 
age  of  English  literature.  It  dates  from  Queen 
Anne. 


n  A 


i 


STANFIELD     HALL 


XVI 
STANFIELD  HALL 

STANFIELD  HALL  is  a  perfect  specimen  of  a 
Tudor  moated  house,  and  recalls  the  divergent 
memories  of  a  personality  and  a  romance 
which  will  be  always  immortal,  and  of  a  vulgar  and 
brutal  crime  which  some  may  think  had  better  be 
forgotten  as  soon  as  may  be.  The  names  of  Amy 
Robsart  the  heroine  of  Kenilworth  and  Rush  the 
murderous  steward  do  not  look  well  together  in 
the  same  line,  and  it  will  be  better  to  deal  with 
the  murderer,  whose  memory  should  have  made  this 
Elizabethan  house  haunted,  before  passing  to  the 
consideration  of  the  heroine  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
greatest  historical  novel,  who  lived  here  in  Gloriana's 
times,  and  who  in  the  end,  but  far  away  from  this 
scene  of  her  birth,  came  herself  to  be  murdered. 

Let  us  deal  first  with  the  case  of  Rush. 

At  the  fall  of  a  gloomy  November  afternoon  in 
the  year  1848,  a  masked  and  muffled  figure  disguising 
treachery  and  murder  in  the  person  of  the  bailiff  of 
the  estate,  by  name  Rush,  unconcernedly  approached 
Stanfield  Hall,  crossed  the  bridge  which  spans  the 
moat,  knocked  at  the  front  door,  and  immediately  on 
its  being  opened  fired  point  blank  at  the  servant  who 


2i 8  MOATED  HOUSES 

opened  it,  strode  across  her  body,  leaving  her  for 
dead,  and  carefully  closing  the  front  door  after  him. 
The  weapon  still  smoked  in  his  hands  when  the 
owner  of  the  house,  a  Mr.  Jermys,  rushed  from  a 
room  which  gave  on  to  the  entrance  hall.  Rush 
shot  him  dead.  Two  corpses,  as  the  murderer 
thought,  now  lay  on  this  classic  portal.  But  this  was 
not  holocaust  enough  for  Rush.  Mr.  Jermys'  son, 
who  had  been  sitting  with  his  father,  came  out  at  the 
sound  of  that  second  discharge,  and  the  sickening  thud 
of  the  falling  body.  He  too  instantly  met  his  end. 
The  wife  and  mother  of  the  two  murdered  people 
now  appeared  upon  the  scene  of  blood,  only,  as  the 
murderer  thought,  to  meet  a  like  fate.  He  fired 
point  blank  at  her,  and  having  seemingly  strewn  the 
hall  of  Stanfield  with  four  victims,  went  out  as 
unostentatiously  as  he  had  entered  it,  still  masked 
and  muffled,  and  closing  the  front  door  quietly  after 
him. 

The  fact  that  the  man's  intention  to  kill  everybody 
who  confronted  him  in  Stanfield  Hall,  because  he 
was  under  the  just  suspicion  of  being  an  unjust 
steward,  is  not  so  remarkable  as  the  fact  that  such  a 
monstrous  crime  should  have  been  planned  and 
carried  out  only  sixty  years  ago  in  the  very  kind  of 
place  in  which  in  bygone  days  this  sort  of  atrocity  was 
expected  as  an  everyday  possibility,  and  was  guarded 
against  by  a  moat  being  built  round  the  house,  and 
by  the  drawbridge  over  it  being  raised  every  even- 
ing at  sundown.  A  quadruple  murder  was  therefore 
committed  at  Stanfield  Hall,  because  the  then  owners 
had  neglected  to  avail  themselves  of  this  last-named 


STANFIELD  HALL  219 

opportunity  for  safety,  which  formed  the  real  reason 
for  the  building  of  such  a  house.  No  murderer 
masked  or  muffled  would  have  got  into  Stanfield  Hall 
in  those  spacious  days  of  Great  Elizabeth,  when  such 
sprightly  gentry  were  lurking  on  murderous  design 
intent  under  every  adjacent  hedgerow,  and  were 
looking  to  see  whether  under  some  influence  of  ex- 
cessive festivity  or  temporary  lack  of  zeal,  some  such 
sleep-stricken  porter  as  we  read  of  in  Macbeth  had 
forgotten  to  raise  the  drawbridge.  The  omission  of 
this  slight  formality  would  have  entailed  throats 
gaping  all  over  England,  in  those  periods  of  her 
history  which  are  justly  or  unjustly  called  "  dark,"  and 
in  which  architects  were  not  thinking  of  an  earthly 
house  when  they  were  building  cathedrals.  And  so 
over  the  whole  of  this  murderous  incident  of  1848 
Irony  shows  his  mocking  smile. 

The  murderer  himself,  hot-foot  from  crime,  yet 
unstained  by  a  drop  of  his  victims'  blood,  went  uncon- 
cernedly home  to  his  cottage,  and  after  a  perfectly 
natural  and  quiet  entrance  to  it,  and  the  eating  and 
digesting  of  an  extremely  hearty  supper,  suddenly 
betook  himself  to  conduct  so  abnormal  that  the 
memory  of  it  remained  an  abiding  and  horrible  haunt- 
ing in  the  mind  of  the  unfortunate  woman  who  passed 
as  his  wife.  Her  evidence,  which  may  not  be  dwelt  upon 
here  for  reasons  which  may  or  may  not  be  guessed  at, 
eventually  helped  to  put  a  halter  round  a  guilty  neck. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  showed  Rush  in  the  light 
of  an  agricultural  Norfolk  Nero. 

Other  evidence  which  in  the  end  proved  fatal  to 
this  atrocious  scoundrel  was  given  in  his  trial  at 


220  MOATED  HOUSES 

Norwich,  and  was  what  lawyers  call  largely  circum- 
stantial. The  fact  of  his  having  worn  a  mask  while 
committing  his  crimes,  of  having  also  put  on  un- 
familiar clothing,  and  of  having  assumed  a  halting 
gait  for  the  horrid  occasion,  lent  to  his  identification 
by  his  surviving  victims  something  of  conjecture. 
The  usual  lying  clock  was  also  called  to  his  aid. 
And  by  its  assistance,  and  that  of  his  unfortunate 
mistress,  an  attempt  was  made,  with  all  the  ingenuity 
that  his  lawyers  could  command,  to  set  up  an  alibi. 
It  failed  in  the  presence  of  a  Court  crowded  to 
suffocating-point  with  all  the  best  blood  in  Norfolk. 
Adverse  comment  might  be  made  on  this  morbid 
tendency  of  well-bred  people  to  be  spectators  of  such 
a  scene  in  1848 ;  but  in  the  face  of  an  equally 
morbid  curiosity  betrayed  on  every  possible  similar 
condition  in  the  present  year  of  grace,  it  had  con- 
ceivably better  be  withheld.  Actor-managers  were 
not  in  existence  when  Rush  was  put  on  trial  for  his 
life :  nor  was  any  world-famed  novelist  at  hand  who 
wished  to  advertise  himself  and  his  works  in  a  fur- 
lined  coat :  neither  were  fashionable  actresses  present 
desirous  of  leaving  the  stage  for  literature  for  a 
moment  or  so,  and  turning  an  experience  into  copy. 
But  Wealth  and  Fashion  forgot  themselves  at 
Norwich  on  this  occasion  quite  as  flagrantly  as 
they  have  recently  done  at  the  Old  Bailey. 

When  the  Court  doors  were  opened  shortly  before 
the  appointed  time,  and  in  response  to  desperate 
cries,  the  rush  of  some  of  the  best  families  in  Norfolk 
overpowered  the  usual  guardians  of  that  local  Hall  of 
Justice.  Dames  fought  furiously  for  entrance  by  the 


•^C^3^' .         -i!'  *&»3: 
•  ^-~~^^^^y^:~^  >  r .  '  -^ 
S^^Wpfj    itVL^^I 

:     ill    -    #th*Av«@»! 

*»iL  '-  •    KA~T* 

1 1 


STANFIELD   HALL 


STANFIELD  HALL  223 

side  of  squires  of  broad  acres  (not  always  their  own 
squires  it  was  currently  believed).  Shrieks  not  for 
justice  but  for  air  rose  to  heaven:  "fans  turned  to 
falchions  in  fair  hands  " :  the  police  provided  proved 
impotent :  stones  began  to  fly :  the  democracy  of 
Norwich,  swarming  from  every  alley  and  side  street, 
pressed  impolitely  on  the  rear  of  the  struggling  mass 
of  Fashion  :  the  presiding  Judge  permitted  himself  to 
grow  pale  and  asked  his  javelin-men  how  he  was  to 
get  to  the  seat  of  Justice :  counsel  engaged  on  either 
side  despaired  of  being  able  to  air  their  eloquence  : 
the  jury,  engaged  in  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  to  reach 
the  box  where  they  were  to  decide  on  a  vital  issue 
calmly,  devoutly  wished  themselves  at  their  re- 
spective peaceful  trades :  finally  a  squadron  of  the 
1 6th  Lancers  was  called  out  to  clear  the  entrances  to 
the  Court.  Its  small  and  dingy  interior  was  by  now 
packed  from  floor  to  ceiling.  The  atmosphere  was 
suffocating.  The  flushed  faces  of  some  of  the  best 
blood  in  Norfolk,  thrust  forward  to  get  a  view  of  the 
still  empty  dock,  began  to  grow  pale  in  spite  of  the 
wavings  of  fans  and  the  inhaling  of  smelling-salts. 
Some  ladies  cried  to  be  carried  out.  Such  was  the 
crowding  that  no  such  feat  was  possible.  Some 
noble  dames  it  is  believed  nearly  paid  for  this  experi- 
ence with  their  lives.  Amidst  a  scene  of  indescribable 
tumult  and  excitement,  the  Judge  took  his  seat  upon 
the  Bench.  All  eyes  that  still  had  the  power  of 
seeing  were  riveted  upon  the  dock.  Rush  appeared 
guarded  by  two  warders. 

He    was   the   only   calm    person    present.     The 
natural  paleness  of  his  face  was  heightened  by  his  red 


224  MOATED  HOUSES 

mutton-chop  whiskers,  but  not  a  muscle  moved  in  it ; 
not  a  tremor  stirred  the  broad  hands  which  he  folded 
carelessly  over  the  dock  railings  ;  his  blue  eyes  re- 
mained perfectly  steady  even  when  they  rested  on 
the  two  survivors  of  his  crime.  Mrs.  Jermys  and  the 
servant  who  had  opened  the  door  to  him  on  the  fatal 
night  were  within  a  few  yards  of  him,  stretched  in 
invalid-chairs  from  which  they  had  to  give  their 
evidence.  Both  were  still  scarcely  out  of  danger,  and 
restoratives  had  frequently  to  be  given  to  them  by 
nurses.  Rush  looked  at  these  destined  victims,  still 
suffering  so  much  as  to  be  scarcely  able  to  speak 
above  a  whisper,  as  if  he  had  never  seen  them  before. 
This  callousness  gave  many  unthinking  spectators  who 
had  not  sounded  the  depths  of  depravity  possible  in 
the  human  heart,  the  idea  that  he  was  an  innocent 
man  ;  and  the  delusion  was  strengthened  when  they 
noticed  that  the  prisoner  did  not  move  a  muscle  of 
his  face,  but  in  fact  seemed  if  possible  more  at  ease  as 
Circumstance  slowly  enveloped  him  in  a  relentless 
chain.  At  the  end  of  a  trial  which  stirred  all  England 
to  the  heart,  Rush  was  found  guilty  and  sentenced  to 
death.  He  said  that  he  was  an  innocent  man,  and  con- 
tinued to  remain  perfectly  calm.  On  the  night  before 
he  was  executed  he  was  asked  what  he  would  have 
for  dinner.  He  answered  at  once,  "  Roast  pork  and 
prune  sauce,"  adding  impressively,  "  and  don't  forget 
the  prune  sauce."  He  was  hung  outside  Norwich  Gaol 
on  the  morning  following  this  elegant  repast.  He 
maintained  an  air  of  injured  innocence  to  the  last, 
though  he  was  supported  in  a  dazed  condition  by  two 
warders  to  the  scaffold.  A  squadron  of  the  i6th 


STANFIELD  HALL  225 

Lancers  had  to  guard  that  engine  of  Justice  from  a 
drunken  and  infuriated  mob  who  fought  round  it  like 
mad  dogs. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  such  a  sordid  episode 
as  this,  to  the  romantic  side  of  Stanfield  Hall's  history, 
though  this  romance  after  running  a  course  pre- 
eminently romantic  was  destined  also  to  end  in 
violent  death.  Amy  Robsart  was  born  at  Stanfield 
Hall  during  the  temporary  tenancy  of  the  place  by 
her  father,  Sir  John.  The  immortal  pages  of  what 
some  judges  think  the  finest  historical  romance  ever 
written,  show  her  growing  to  girlhood  amidst  the 
happiest  surroundings,  in  a  moated  house  on  the 
fringe  of  Exmoor.  If  for  Lidcote  Hall,  Stanfield 
Hall  is  read,  Kenilworth  can  be  well  left  to  tell  the 
story  of  a  vivacious  and  spoilt  girlhood  which  was 
destined  to  grow  up  among  these  grey  gables  and 
green  Suffolk  park-lands,  to  an  end  so  tragic.  The 
Wizard  of  the  North  was  very  careful  of  his  facts  even 
when  he  was  going  to  work  them  into  romances,  and 
the  Waverley  Novels  will  be  found  in  the  end  to 
contain  more  true  history  than  much  that  is  issued 
in  heavier  volumes  under  the  solemn  yet  sleepy  eye 
of  the  University  Printing  Press  of  Oxford. 

And  so  as  Stanfield  Hall  was  certainly  the  scene 
of  Amy  Robsart 's  birth,  it  was  probably  the  scene 
of  her  wooing  by  the  splendid,  disguised,  and  perfidious 
Earl  of  Leicester.  The  light  that  never  was  on  land 
or  sea  at  once  falls  upon  this  Suffolk  home.  The 
genius  of  Sir  Walter  asserts  itself,  and  the  full  course 
of  Amy  Robsart's  love-story  takes  visible  form ; 
peoples  the  old  house  and  its  noble  park-lands  with 
15 


226  MOATED  HOUSES 

a  whole  army  of  wanderers  from  the  World  of  Dreams  ! 
To  the  imaginative  visitor,  and  no  visitor  need  trouble 
to  visit  such  houses  as  these  unless  he  has  an  ample 
store  of  imagination  packed  in  a  fanciful  portmanteau, 
what  delightful  figures  from  Sir  Walter's  great 
romance  do  not  step  from  those  enchanted  pages, 
and  stir  about  this  Lidcote  of  the  novel  now  trans- 
formed to  Stanfield  Hall !  We  see  in  the  mind's  eye 
the  melancholy  Tressilian  with  head  bowed  from  his 
recent  discomfiture  at  Cumnor  Place  riding  slowly 
across  the  bridge  over  the  moat,  scarcely  noticing 
the  honest,  stout,  weather-beaten  forester's  hearty 
greetings.  (Bill  Badger  was  probably  fresh  from  his 
feat  of  treading  on  Bungay's  tail,  in  order  that  the 
howl  of  his  favourite  hound  might  rouse  old  Sir  Hugh 
Robsart  from  his  long  lethargy.)  The  sad  events 
which  brought  about  the  good  old  Knight's  dangerous 
sickness  now  take  form  before  our  eyes  in  a  series  of 
living  pictures.  Varney,  "  worse  heraldry  than  metal 
upon  metal,  more  false  than  a  siren,  more  rapacious 
than  a  griffin,  more  poisonous  than  a  wyvern,  more 
cruel  than  a  lion  rampant," — Varney  muffled  in  a 
russet  cloak  pressing  his  noble  master's  suit  in  the 
South  Wood.  Amy  Robsart  listens,  drinking  in  every 
word  of  that  artfully  contrived  pleading,  the  colour 
deepening  on  her  beautiful  cheeks.  She  turns  and 
looks  long  after  the  retreating  courtier  on  the  approach 
of  the  grey-headed  clergyman  who  had  been  a  con- 
fessor when  the  Smithfield  fires  flamed.  Very  soon 
after  this  episode  the  fatal  elopement  of  the  beauty 
of  Stanfield  Hall  took  place,  and  we  see  Varney 's 
groom,  attired  in  his  liveries,  holding  his  master's 


STANFIELD  HALL  227 

horse,  and  Miss  Amy's  palfrey  bridled  and  saddled, 
sheltering  behind  the  wall  of  the  churchyard.  The 
sunset  of  St.  Austen's  Eve  lights  up  this  fateful 
picture.  Now  arrives  that  serving-man  on  the 
bonniest  grey  tit  Will  Badger's  eyes  ever  rested  upon, 
bearing  the  news  of  the  Earl  of  Sussex'  dangerous 
sickness.  We  note  with  Mumblazen,  the  herald  of 
the  house,  the  silver  cognizance  on  the  messenger's 
arm, — a  fire- drake  holding  in  his  mouth  a  brick-bat 
under  a  coronet  of  an  Earl's  degree.  Soon  after  this, 
Wayland  Smith  is  seen  changing  himself  from  a 
farrier  into  a  serving-man  by  putting  on  a  new  suit 
and  turning  up  his  dyed  moustachios  :  Tressilian  and 
he  start  Londonwards  to  save  the  Earl  of  Sussex, 
and  lay  a  petition  on  behalf  of  the  errant  Amy  before 
Elizabeth.  Their  horses'  iron  hoofs  clang  on  the 
drawbridge.  The  howling  of  the  old  Knight's  hounds 
rises  in  a  mournful  farewell  from  the  kennels  which 
lie  at  no  great  distance  from  the  Hall,  and  which  are 
surrounded  by  the  same  moat. 

One  more  picture  before  we  detach  one  of  these 
delightful  wanderers  from  the  realm  of  romance  for 
our  special  guidance  and  instruction  in  this  survey 
of  Stanfield  Hall, — an  interior  this  time.  It  is  Saint 
Lucy's  Eve,  three  years  before  Tressilian  and  Way- 
land's  departure  for  London  on  that  joint  search  for 
justice  and  an  antidote  to  the  "  Manna  of  St.  Nicholas," 
which  had  been  put  into  the  Earl  of  Sussex'  broth.  In 
that  long  low  parlour,  the  walls  hung  with  implements 
of  the  chase,  a  company  are  assembled  to  witness  the 
feats  of  a  travelling  juggler.  By  the  side  of  the  massive 
stone  chimney,  over  which  hung  a  sword  and  suit  of 


228  MOATED  HOUSES 

armour  which  had  rung  to  the  onslaughts  of  the 
battle  of  Stoke,  sits  Sir  Hugh  Robsart — a  man  of 
unwieldy  size.  Amy  nestles  beside  him.  Leicester's 
allurements  had  not  touched  her  yet.  She  is  betrothed 
to  Tressilian,  who  with  fond  eyes  watches  the  beautiful 
girl's  intentness  on  the  mysteries  in  progress.  We 
can  see  the  clowns  and  the  clownlike  squires  of  the 
neighbourhood  staring  open-mouthed  at  the  travelling 
juggler's  art,  which  they  take  to  be  magic.  So  does 
Amy  herself.  Tressilian  sees  that  fairest  face  he 
ever  looked  upon  growing  pale,  and  the  bright  eyes 
dim,  at  the  sight  of  that  seemingly  unpremeditated  dis- 
play of  marvels.  He  comes  to  the  rescue  of  that  beauty 
in  distress ;  exposes  the  artist's  tricks  ;  allays  those 
delightful  fears.  The  herald  of  the  family,  Master 
Mumblazen,  smiles  approval  of  Tressilian's  exposition. 
It  is  this  delightful  figure  of  the  withered,  thin 
elderly  gentleman  with  a  cheek  like  a  winter's  apple, 
his  grey  hair  partly  concealed  by  a  high  hat  shaped 
like  a  cone,  that  I  propose  to  detach  from  these 
revenants  from  the  world  of  romance,  and  press  him 
into  our  service  as  guide  over  Stanfield  Hall.  Who 
would  know  its  treasures  better  than  Master  Mum- 
blazen, herald,  antiquar,  and  sworn  friend  of  the 
house?  Will  he  not  with  formal  and  learned  tread 
show  us  over  it  ?  What  better  guide  could  be  had, 
especially  if  we  have  left  our  Murrays  in  the  inn  at 
Norwich  ?  We  shall  get  more  details  in  our  present 
company,  even  though  it  is  an  earlier  edition,  and 
speaks  in  language  somewhat  archaic.  So  in  Master 
Mumblazen's  company  we  will  view  the  architectural 
and  domestic  features  of  this  house,  which  must  have 


STANFIELD  HALL  229 

been  admired  and  catalogued  in  quaint  handwriting  by 
many  a  character  of  his  type,  no  doubt  some  of  them 
quainter  still.  This,  then,  in  language  not  too  heraldic, 
is  Master  Mumblazen's  account  of  Stanfield  Hall : — 

"  Brick  ;  nearly  encompassed  by  a  moat ;  lies  to 
the  south-west  of  Norwich,  in  the  parish  of  Wydmon- 
ham.  The  Hall  is  a  substantial  pile.  The  entrance 
is  approached  over  a  brick  bridge  of  two  arches, 
spanning  the  moat  which  surrounds  the  house.  There 
is  a  coat  of  arms  over  the  porch  door."  (Here  we 
should  have  something  about  seiant  in  the  parlour, 
or  passant  in  the  garden,  not  to  say  anything  about 
necks  reguardant.}  "The  walls  are  of  white  brick 
and  the  rest  of  slate.  Notice  the  arched  heads  to 
the  upper  lights  of  the  windows.  The  dormer  gables 
being  plain,  instead  of  the  usual  crow-step  arrange- 
ment, give  the  place  a  somewhat  earlier  character 
than  it  is  entitled  to.  But  view  the  octagonal  turrets 
with  their  finials  at  the  main  angles  of  the  building. 
A  similar  treatment  of  the  dormers  are  of  course 
familiar  features,  and,  though  used  somewhat  spar- 
ingly, produce  a  good  effect.  The  growth  of  ivy  and 
creepers  against  the  walls  adds  colour  and  contrast 
to  the  scene."  (Here  would  follow  another  illustra- 
tion drawn  from  Heraldry's  jargon.) 

"  Notice  the  fine  trees  flanking  the  building  on 
each  side !  And  also  notice  that  the  outer  wall  is 
groined  with  stone  ribs  springing  from  ample 
columns  ! "  (Here  a  sandwich  case  and  a  flask  would 
be  hurriedly  consulted — and  in  the  interval  of  this 
cessation  from  hostilities,  we  have  got  inside  the 
house  :  and  Master  Mumblazen  may  be  again  imagined 


230  MOATED  HOUSES 

speaking.)  "  Look,"  he  says,  "  at  the  elaborate  groin- 
ing of  this  inner  hall :  view  its  fan-stone  tracery  !  also 
springing  from  angle  columns  !  Note  also  the  grand 
ceiling  over  the  staircase !  Though  the  staircase,  I 
notice,  is  not  what  it  used  to  be  25  Eliz.,"  etc.  etc.  etc. 

Let  us  now  put  something  of  the  history  of  the 
owners  of  the  house  into  the  mouth  of  this  learned- 
guide,  if  he  can  be  imagined  still  walking  the  glimpses  of 
the  moon,  as  he  will  assuredly  live  for  ever  in  the  pages 
of  Kenilworth  \  This  is  what  Master  Mumblazen 
would  have  told  us  about  Stanfield  Hall's  owners  : — 

"In  the  12  Henry  vn  Edmond  de  la  Pole  Earl 
of  Suffolk,  granted  this  lordship  to  Elizabeth  Robsart 
widow  of  Sir  John  Terry  Robsart  from  whom  it  at 
length  descended  to  John  who  was  Lord  of  the 
Manor,  Sheriff  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  in  the  first 
of  Edward  vi.  This  John  Robsart  had  a  pardon 
from  the  said  King  by  the  advice  of  Edward  Duke 
of  Somerset,  the  Protector,  and  the  Council,  of  all 
treasons," etc.  etc.  (Here  Master  Mumblazen  would 
pause  at  the  point  where  learning  was  about  to  lay 
bare  family  scandals — then  on  he  would  go  again.) 
"  Soon  after  he  died  leaving,  by  Elizabeth,  his  wife, 
a  daughter  and  heir,  Anne " 

This  Anne  was  Amy  Robsart. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  have  not  been  able  to 
follow  Master  Mumblazen's  description  of  Stanfield 
Hall,  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  fine  view  of  the 
place  in  Neale's  Views  of  Gentlemen's  Houses.  It 
represents  the  east-south-east  side  of  the  building. 
It,  however,  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  competes 
unfavourably  with  the  accompanying  illustration. 


-*-•••  ' 


XVII 
IGHTHAM  MOAT 

IF  Compton  Winyates  has  been  called  a  house  in 
a  hole,  Ightham  may  be  described  as  being  a 
house  in  a  ravine,  if  such  a  precipitous  expression 
may  be  properly  applied  to  the  pastoral  scenery  of 
Kent.  The  descent  to  the  place,  especially  by  a 
certain  footpath,  is  almost  headlong.  Suddenly  this 
moated  manor  is  seen  hiding  itself  in  the  opening  of  a 
small  valley.  Nor  does  the  word  "hiding"  quite  con- 
vey the  weird  secretiveness  of  the  site.  Weird  better 
suggests  the  first  impression  made  on  the  mind  at  the 
first  sight  of  Ightham,  and  especially  is  this  the  case  if 
the  place  is  first  seen  at  the  close  of  a  winter's  after- 
noon with  snowflakes  falling  about  gables  which  seem 
to  be  nodding  in  a  conspiracy  of  silence,  or  melting 
into  the  broad  and  dark  waters  of  a  moat,  whose 
murmurs  seem  the  murmurs  of  distrust.  The  house 
wears  a  wicked  look. 

Nothing  of  this  nature,  however,  on  a  first  search, 
is  to  be  found  in  its  history,  unless  it  be  the  former 
occupation  of  the  house  by  Brackenbury,  Richard  the 
Third's  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower.  This  noble  proprietor 
rode  out  of  Ightham,  gallantly  armed,  to  join  Crook- 
back's  army  at  Bosworth  field.  At  first  sight  this 


232  MOATED  HOUSES 

feudal  feat  suggests  only  a  martial  leaning.  But, 
warlike  doings  apart,  this  Brackenbury  was  much 
too  close  an  associate  of  a  villain  to  escape  from 
the  suspicion  of  having  been  one  himself.  And  his 
memory  is  not  trie  only  factor  which  inspires  the 
suggestion  that  Ightham  wears  a  wicked  look.  What 
shall  be  said  of  the  striking  position  of  an  oubliette 
giving  directly  into  unknown  depths,  and  placed  as  it 
were  in  an  ambush  which  no  unsuspicious  person  could 
help  falling  into,  immediately  outside  the  Jacobsean 
drawing-room  door  ?  The  situation  of  one  of  these 
strange  contrivances  at  Broughton  Castle  is  near 
enough  to  what  is  called  the  Council  Chamber  to  make 
visitors  meditate.  But  the  oubliette  at  Ightham  can 
be  made  to  yawn  so  immediately  on  the  threshold  of 
a  room  devoted  to  hospitality,  as  to  positively  give 
the  visitor  pause.  Doubts  arise  as  to  the  finale  of 
certain  bygone  receptions.  A  congd  could  have 
been  given  here  to  a  departing  guest  to  which  the 
words  "Good-night"  would  have  been  irrevocably 
applicable. 

The  architecture  of  the  place  reflects  three  distinct 
periods,  so  harmoniously  blended  by  accident  or  design, 
that  they  seem  at  first  sight  a  perfect  whole.  And  it 
is  not  till  a  near  view  is  taken,  that  the  days  of  the 
early  Edwards,  of  the  Tudors,  and  of  the  First  James 
are  seen  memorialized  in  a  building  whose  secrecy  of 
position,  picturesqueness  of  general  appearance,  and 
broad  girdle  of  running  water  washing  its  four  walls, 
justly  entitles  it  in  the  opinion  of  experts  to  the  claim 
of  being  the  typical  moated  house  of  England  and  the 
one  most  typically  moated.  There  are  two  entrances  to 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  233 

Ightham.     Each,  of  course,  is  made  over  stone  bridges 
which    have    taken    the    place   of    the   wooden    ones 
capable  of  being  raised.     The    more  insignificant  of 
these  two  bridges  is  on  the  north,  side  of  the  house, 
and  though  unpretentious  in  size,  it  has,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  performed  two  duties  whose  significance  is 
extreme.      It  now   leads   the    way  over  the  moat  to 
that  kitchen  department  of  a  house  whose  hospitality 
has  been  for  centuries    proverbial.      In  bygone  days 
it  not  only  served  the  purpose  which  it  serves  now, 
namely  an  entrance  for  eatables  ;  but  in  moments  of 
storm  and  stress  it   was  used   as   a   sally-port,  from 
which  defenders  of  the  house  rushed  out  at  the  most 
unexpected  moment,  and  fell  upon  the  rear  of  assail- 
ants who  were  occupying  themselves  with  the  archi- 
tecture or  the  defensive  properties  of  the  main  entrance 
on  the  other  side  of  the  building.     This  main  entrance 
is  likewise  made  over  a  stone  bridge,  and  through  the 
archway  of  a  gatehouse  which   looks  like  a  porter's 
lodge  of  an  Oxford    College.     The  quadrangle  into 
which  it  gives  has  also  an  academic  air.     Grey  is  the 
sober  and  prevailing  colour,  and  this  is  relieved  in  the 
summer  by  the  bright  hues  of  a  profusion  of  flowers 
growing  in  an  ordered  riot  against  the  four  walls  of 
the  courtyard.     The  entrance  to  the  house  itself  is  in 
the  north-east  corner  of  the  quadrangle,  and  is  typical 
of  the  proverbial   hospitality  of  past  owners.     You 
have  no  sooner  passed    through  the  cosy  courtyard 
than  you  are  in  the   dining-room.     And  the  dining- 
room  at  Ightham  is  represented  by  the  superbly  pro- 
portioned beauties  of  a  banqueting  hall  dating  from 
Yorkist  or  Lancastrian  days,  and  which,  for  its  size,  is 


234  MOATED  HOUSES 

probably  the  finest  of  its  kind  to  be  met  with  in  the 
moated  houses  in  England.  Its  beautiful  oriel  window 
commands  a  view  of  the  courtyard.  The  height  of 
the  roof  is  remarkable,  yet  lends  an  air  of  added 
elegance  by  its  loftiness  ;  and  is  in  immediate  contrast 
to  the  other  living-rooms  in  the  house,  where 
ornamented  ceilings  may  be  put  to  the  ordeal  of  touch, 
by  the  simple  expedient  of  a  man  of  average  height 
raising  his  right  hand  above  his  head.  The  lowness 
of  these  ceilings  gives  rise  to  thought.  And  it  may 
account  at  the  same  time  for  our  ancestors'  habit  of 
extremely  early  rising.  Their  speculations  on  future 
events  were  not  so  soaring  as  ours.  And  they  did 
not,  as  a  consequence,  call  for  so  much  empty  space 
above  meditative  and  often  equally  empty  heads. 
Comfort  and  not  range,  were  the  necessaries  of  their 
naive  musings  on  men  and  things.  But  here  stepped 
in  the  necessity  which  drove  them  out  of  their  houses 
at  such  unearthly  hours  in  the  morning.  (Everybody 
rose  at  five  o'clock  in  England  when  Henry  the  Eighth 
was  King.)  For,  as  all  the  windows  of  such  places 
as  Ightham  were  not  made  to  open,  and  could  never 
be  used  for  the  purpose ;  and  as  the  ceilings  of  the 
bedrooms  were  as  low  as  the  ceilings  of  the  libraries 
and  drawing-rooms ;  the  whole  household  were  glad 
to  get  out  into  the  fields  or  the  courtyard  as  soon  as 
the  day  broke,  to  avoid  being  asphyxiated.  The 
height  of  the  banqueting  hall  at  Ightham,  so  par- 
ticularly noticeable,  is  only  another  example  of  the 
steps  that  had  to  be  taken  to  supply  the  place  of  an 
absent  ventilation.  The  constant  steam  of  eatables 
must  have  always  been  ascending  in  those  hearty 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  237 

days  when  the  commons  of  England  at  all  events 
were  always  merry,  and  when  a  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Northumberland  might  have  been  seen  breakfasting 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  a  great  shin  of  beef 
and  two  pints  of  strong  beer.  Those  hospitable 
fumes  eternally  ascending  had  to  go  somewhere.  The 
hall  windows  could  not  be  opened.  A  high-pitched 
roof  to  the  banqueting  hall  was  the  only  resource. 

The  north  side  of  Ightham,  or,  to  speak  more 
accurately,  the  side  of  the  house  which  nestles  nearest 
to  the  precipitous  hillside,  is  the  earliest  part  of  the 
building,  and  is  enriched  by  some  black-and-white 
timber-work,  which  is  well  seen  from  the  winding 
road  above.  This  is  the  most  picturesque  view  of 
the  place.  It  was  the  last  which  Brackenbury  would 
have  caught  of  his  old  home,  as  he  rode  dejectedly 
away  with  his  followers  to  Bos  worth  field.  This 
side  also  shows  Ightham  at  its  weirdest.  Before  the 
untimely  footsteps  of  a  not  altogether  unsuccessful 
restoration  were  heard  pattering  about  the  place,  it 
was  here  that,  at  the  fall  of  daylight,  the  old  house 
put  on  a  ghostly  air,  and  no  surprise  is  felt  when  one 
learns  that  this  is  the  part  of  the  house  which  was 
held  to  be  haunted.  For  a  long  time  ghosts  were 
the  only  people  that  dwelt  in  it ;  and  a  succession  of 
low  corridors,  and  sleeping-rooms  with  ceilings  lower 
still,  echoed  only  to  the  haunted  footsteps  of  these 
shy  visitors  from  the  world  fantastical,  whose  silent 
approach  infects  most  people  with  a  shyness  greater 
still.  Through  this  part  of  the  building  access  lay 
originally  into  the  chapel.  But  would-be  worshippers 
one  night  thought  they  saw  something  walking  which 


238  MOATED  HOUSES 

they  didn't  like,  and  avoided  meeting  a  dead  ancestor 
on  their  way  to  Mass,  by  making  an  entrance  to  the 
chapel  from  the  courtyard.  Like  the  hall  of  the 
house,  this  chapel  is  of  its  kind  a  perfect  specimen. 
The  roses  of  Henry  the  Eighth  and  Catherine  of 
Arragon  are  emblazoned  on  the  ceiling,  although  they 
are  now  only  to  be  faintly  seen.  A  desolate  air 
pervades  this  deserted  shrine  where  once  live  men 
prayed,  and  the  ghostly  reputation  of  the  neighbouring 
part  of  the  house  extends  its  eerie  influence.  Wor- 
shippers long  since  dead  seem  to  people  the  vacant 
and  dusty  pews.  The  incense  rises  of  the  other 
world.  Only  Time's  effacing  fingers  touch  the  ancient 
organ,  to  draw  from  it,  for  a  congregation  which  the 
eye  cannot  see,  the  music  only  heard  in  silence. 

Associations  more  living  are  felt  in  the  later 
periods  of  the  building,  and  especially  in  the  long  and 
well-lighted  drawing-room,  overlooking  the  old-world 
garden,  and  designed  in  the  best  style  of  James  the 
First.  The  view  from  this  room,  which  faces  the 
sunset,  over  moat  and  well-trimmed  lawns,  is,  at  that 
mystic  hour,  one  of  a  strangely  romantic  charm. 
Cawing  rooks  lazily  wing  their  way  homewards ;  the 
murmur  of  the  moat  comes  through  windows  which 
have,  in  these  days  of  grace,  learnt  the  way  to  be 
opened.  Hesperus  approaches,  and  the  spirit  of  this 
old-world  home  of  our  ancestors  is  very  near.  So, 
singularly  enough,  is  the  oubliette  of  which  mention 
has  already  been  made.  And  it  is  characteristic  of 
a  house  of  the  Ightham  type  that  such  an  object  of 
danger  and  mistrust  should  so  suddenly  obtrude 
itself,  at  the  very  moment  when  the  mind  is  occupied 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  239 

with  a  contemplation  of  the  place's  serener  surround- 
ings. You  turn  from  looking  at  a  sunset  from  the 
window  of  a  Jacobaean  drawing-room,  and  a  piece  of 
mediaeval  treachery  stares  you  in  the  face.  Your 
hostess  rises  from  a  civilized  tea-table  and  touches 
a  spring  at  the  side  of  the  fireplace  :  you  open  a  door, 
and  if  you  had  not  been  warned  not  to  go  forward, 
you  would  have  fallen  into  the  moat.  Such  sudden 
descents  from  hospitality  would  have  been  made 
earlier  than  the  days  of  James  the  First,  though  the 
times  of  that  learned  King  were  villainous  enough  to 
countenance  the  use  of  such  treachery.  Dissimula- 
tion was  everywhere  in  those  bibulous  and  pedantic 
times.  Everybody  was  diving  into  deceit.  The 
opening  of  the  Ightham  oubliette  would  have  been 
only  one  plunge  the  more. 

While  on  the  edge  of  this  dangerous  subject,  it 
may  be  timely  and  fair  to  make  mention  of  the  fact 
that  the  use  to  which  it  is  here  and  elsewhere 
suggested  that  these  oubliettes  were  put,  has  been 
eloquently  denied  by  an  eminent  French  antiquary. 
Monsieur  Viollet-le-Duc,  however,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, is  an  apostle  of  those  ages  which  are 
no  doubt  very  often  ignorantly  called  "dark."  He 
will  have  "the  gorgeous  Middle  Ages,"  or  nothing; 
and  cannot  listen  with  patience  to  the  tale  of 
barbarities,  when  men  who  were  supposed  to  commit 
them  were  capable  of  building  cathedrals.  "  They 
thought  not  of  an  earthly  home  who  thus  could  build," 
is  not  only  his  motto  for  those  artists  who  gave 
England  Salisbury  and  York  Minster,  but  for  every 
one  else  apparently  who  was  building  very  different 


240  MOATED  HOUSES 

sorts  of  places  at  the  same  time.  Nor  from  my  point 
of  view  would  the  cathedral  motto  be  inappropriate 
for  the  oubliette  itself.  For  after  all,  if  you  fell  down 
one  of  these  contrivances  by  design,  or  accident, 
there  was  no  time  for  considerations  earthly.  And 
whatever  else  may  be  said  about  them,  here  are  these 
oubliettes  still  staring  us  in  the  face  in  many  old 
houses  moated  or  otherwise  all  over  the  country. 
They  must  have  served  some  purpose.  Something 
sudden  must  be  said  for  them,  and  we  have  said  it. 
But  what  does  Monsieur  Viollet-le-Duc  say  for  them, 
though  he  would  have  been  glad  to  get  rid  of  these 
suggestions  of  barbarity  which  are  to  be  found,  alas  ! 
in  great  numbers  even  in  France  ?  He  says  that 
they  were  what  we  should  call  sinks  ;  and  suggests, 
as  a  doubtful  prop  to  an  unlikely  theory,  their 
application  for  another  and  a  more  offensive  purpose 
which  cannot  well  be  named.  Perhaps  in  the 
language  of  diplomacy,  it  may  be  suggested  in 
French,  and  the  word  latrine  written.  But  this 
seems  a  very  lame  excuse.  Nobody  knew  better 
than  Monsieur  Viollet-le-Duc  where  mediaeval  people 
put  their  slops ;  or  why,  when  gabled  houses  were 
built  with  overhanging  storeys,  gallant  men  always 
gave  ladies  the  wall — in  other  words,  allowed  them 
to  walk  as  near  the  wall  as  possible.  The  courtesy 
was  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  them  receiving  the 
contents  of  the  slop-pails.  With  a  simple  warning 
cry  of  "  Below  there  !  "  these  were  discharged  indis- 
criminately out  of  the  windows.  If  such  was  the 
daily  practice  in  cities  like  London  and  Paris,  why 
should  country  people  drill  holes  outside  drawing- 


IGHTHAM    MOAT 


16 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  243 

room  doors  to  throw  slops  into,  when  the  servants  of 
the  house  were  at  hand  with  a  moat  full  of  water 
running  beneath  them  ?  Were  slops  to  be  collected 
in  the  council  chambers  ?  Were  drawing-rooms  to 
give  up  other  leavings  ?  The  oubliettes  were  of 
course  used  for  what  had  to  be  got  rid  of  in  the 
way  of  humanity.  The  name  oubliette  should  surely 
be  sufficient.  It  was  a  place  down  which  people  fell 
as  if  by  accident,  whom  expediency  suggested  should 
not  only  be  removed,  but  should  also  be  for- 
gotten. No  revenants  reappeared  from  these  unseen 
depths. 

It  has  been  said  earlier  in  this  paper  that  the  first 
search  through  Ightham's  history  shows  nothing  in 
keeping  with  a  certain  wicked  look  which  the  house 
wears.  The  oubliette  outside  this  drawing-room 
door  tends  to  correct  this  benign  impression.  But  it 
is  a  more  singular  thing  still  that  this  very  drawing- 
room  itself,  of  all  rooms  in  the  house  the  most  homely 
and  social-looking,  should  be  connected  with  a 
character  possessing  every  quality  for  an  ideal  lady 
of  the  manor,  who  yet  through  the  medium  of  her 
very  personality  connects  Ightham  with  one  of  the 
darkest  episodes  in  English  history.  In  the  neigh- 
bouring parish  church  there  is  a  brass  erected  to  the 
memory  of  this  lady  with  a  curious  inscription  con- 
necting her  with  that  memorable  incident  known  as 
the  Gunpowder  Plot. 

A  certain  quaint  obscurity  of  phrase  clouds  this 
record  of  Dame  Dorothy  Selby's  undoubted  domestic 
virtues.  It  leaves  also  in  a  properly  inscriptive 
gloom  the  exact  nature  of  the  part  she  took  in  the 


244  MOATED  HOUSES 

disclosing  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot.  Here  we  have 
an  explanation  in  a  moment  of  a  certain  dark  and 
treacherous  look  that  the  house  wears.  That  is  to 
say,  if  we  do  not  embrace  the  theory  that  Dame 
Dorothy's  connection  with  that  abominable  under- 
taking was  confined  solely  to  executing  a  representa- 
tion of  it  in  that  tapestry-work  in  which  she  so 
excelled.  This  latter  theory  always  seemed  to  be 
strained  to  the  verge  of  an  absurdity,  yet  to  an 
absurdity  not  absolutely  capable  of  proof,  till  a  story 
carefully  kept  in  a  house  so  far  away  from  Ightham 
as  Gloucestershire  came  to  the  rescue  and  made  a 
present  of  the  evidence  required.  It  would  seem 
that  at  about  that  period  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot 
when  the  heavy  and  continuous  rainfalls  of  the  early 
autumn  of  1605  were  making  Sir  Everard  Digby  and 
Guy  Fawkes  wonder  whether  the  powder  stowed 
under  the  Parliament  House  was  not  getting  damp 
(the  sinister  reflection  occurred  to  the  pair  as  they 
sat  shivering  over  the  fireplace  at  Sir  Everard 
Digby's  beautiful  house  at  Gayhurst),  this  Dame 
Dorothy  Selby,  in  the  course  of  that  round  of  country 
visits  which  was  beginning  to  be  made  possible  by 
the  slowly  improving  conditions  of  the  roads  (if 
improving  should  not  be  the  missing  word),  had 
occasion  in  this  friendly  circuit  to  pay  a  visit  to  the 
country  seat  in  Gloucestershire  already  referred  to. 
There  was  assembled  what  we  should  call  in  these 
days  a  large  house-party.  The  owners  of  the  place, 
being  of  the  Old  Faith,  had  to  pay  heavily  for  the 
privilege  of  not  going  to  a  Protestant  church  on 
Sunday,  but  by  the  lenity  of  a  statute  they  were 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  245 

allowed  the  latitude  of  entertaining  Catholic  guests. 
Amongst  these  it  appears  were  two  of  the  Gunpowder 
Plot    conspirators,    concealing   their    dreadful    secret 
under  the  amenities   of  social   life,  and  showing  no 
sign,  save  that  perhaps  of  pale  faces,  and  of  furtive 
glances  in  unguarded   moments,  of  that  abominable 
secret  which  lay  already  stored  under  the  Parliament 
House.     Catesby,  the  contriver  of  the  Plot,  is  said  to 
have  been  one  of  these  visitors.     Who  the  other  was 
is    doubtful,    but    it   would    very   likely   have    been 
Catesby's  servant  Bates.     (In  this  case  the  visitors' 
list   at  the    Gloucestershire  house   must  be  reduced 
by  one,  and  a  concealed  conspirator  introduced  into 
the  company  in  the  servants'  hall.)     By  one  of  those 
accidents  which  always  occur  in  similar  undertakings, 
and    which    are    never    counted    upon,    some    such 
reference  was  made  to  the  probable  dampening  of  the 
gunpowder  from   the  incessant   rain,   as  had   passed 
between    Sir    Everard    Digby  and   Guy   Fawkes   at 
Gayhurst.     It  was  a  chance  word  spoken  aside  in  a 
drawing-room    supposed    to    be  empty ;    and   it   was 
made  by  Catesby  to  a  friend-conspirator,  or  to  that 
Bates  who  was  a  conspirator's  servant.    The  reference, 
however,  was  made,  and  speaker  and  hearer  left  that 
supposititiously   empty   room.     But    behind  a  screen 
drawn  close  to  keep  the  draught  from  the  fire,  and 
unknown   to  that  departed  and  guilty  pair,  another 
hearer  was  sitting.      Dame  Dorothy  Selby  had  been 
at  her  silent  work  of  embroidery.     The  needle  must 
have   dropped    from    her    nerveless    fingers   as    her 
utterly  unsuspecting  ears  were  invaded  suddenly  by 
that  tremendous  secret.     The  entrance  of  several  of 


246  MOATED  HOUSES 

the  other  guests  found  her  sitting  shivering,  with  her 
eyes  fixed  in  a  frightened  stare,  and  the  embroidery- 
work  lying  unnoticed  on  the  floor.  The  hostess 
thought  that  her  guest  had  had  some  sort  of  stroke, 
and  implored  her  to  let  a  doctor  be  sent  for.  Dame 
Dorothy  Selby  made  the  excuse  of  an  intermittent 
ague,  which  would  pass  of  itself,  and  went  to  bed. 
She  left  the  Gloucestershire  house  for  Ightham  the 
following  morning. 

So  runs  the  story  which  has  passed  through 
generations  of  a  county  family.  It  may  be  a  true 
one,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  this  is  the  first  time  it 
has  been  written.  It  certainly  not  only  explains  an 
obscure  line  in  Dorothy  Selby's  monumental  in- 
scription, but  sheds  a  light  still  much  needed  on  a 
doubtful  episode  in  the  story  of  a  conspiracy  which, 
in  spite  of  a  world-wide  notoriety  among  stories  in- 
famous, and  the  assistance  of  recent  deep  and 
scholarly  research,  still  remains  singularly  dark  and 
doubtful.  Who  sent  the  warning  letter  to  Lord 
Mounteagle  is  still  an  unproved  quantity  in  the  story 
of  the  Gunpowder  Plot.  That  the  Government  had 
intelligence  of  the  plot  before  that  letter  was  sent 
at  all,  has  been  proved  lately  and  practically  to 
demonstration.  That  the  agents  of  the  English 
Secret  Service  reaped  the  advantage  of  Dame 
Dorothy  Selby's  undesigned  eavesdropping  in 
Gloucestershire  seems  a  contingency  more  than 
probable,  as  is  the  certainty  that  they  would 
keep  as  a  secret  inviolable  all  real  facts  as  to 
how  the  information  came  to  them,  and  from  what 
source. 


IGHTHAM 


IGHTHAM  MOAT  249 

The  gloomy  and  distrustful  look  of  Ightham  Moat 
has  thus  been  connected  with  an  episode  which  should 
more  than  account  for  such  an  appearance,  and  the 
history  of  the  old  house  has  at  the  same  time  drawn 
into  its  story  the  figure  of  a  lady  of  the  manor  who  was 
pre-eminently  worthy  of  such  a  post.  It  is  pleasant 
indeed  to  turn  from  this  dark  experience  of  Dame 
Dorothy  Selby's  life,  and  to  picture  her  in  that  ordered 
round  of  charitable  and  skilful  duties  which  she  per- 
formed with  a  regularity  which  never  slackened  or 
faltered,  and  which  with  an  impress  more  enduring 
than  that  cut  in  her  monument  has  stamped  her 
virtues  indelibly  on  the  memory  of  a  countryside. 
Frugal,  yet  hospitable,  careful  of  her  poor,  generous 
to  her  Church,  equipped  for  every  household  duty 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  a  fine  needlewoman, 
and  last  though  not  least  a  good  cook,  she  seems 
to  unite  in  herself  all  those  qualities  which  the 
Conqueror's  great  perception  saw  were  the  vital 
accompaniments  to  a  proper  holding  of  land,  and 
which  were  in  fact  the  stated  conditions  under  which 
alone  it  could  be  lawfully  held.  This  much  can  at 
least  be  urged  for  the  much  and  ignorantly  abused 
Feudal  System.  The  faults  of  that  system,  as  I 
have  before  had  occasion  to  insist  upon,  at  the  very 
foundation  of  which  lies  the  great  maxim  that  Property 
has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights,  were  the  inevitable 
results  of  the  weakness  of  human  nature  and  the 
barbarities  of  the  times.  Its  virtues  are  still  evidenced 
in  many  a  country  property,  whose  owners,  in  their 
rigid  loyalty  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  duties  which 
the  possession  of  property  entails,  unconsciously  put 


250  MOATED  HOUSES 

into  practice  the  dictums  of  the  Conqueror.  No  more 
perfect  type  of  a  lady  of  the  manor  in  past  times  can 
be  pointed  out  than  Dame  Dorothy  Selby.  And 
Ightham  will  be  always  associated  with  that  distinc- 
tion which  is  so  justly  hers. 


•"'• 


WOODCROFT    MANOR 


XVIII 
WOODCROFT 

1298 

THE  history  of  this  house  is  a  record  of  nineteen 
lawsuits,  and  of  a  particularly  tragic  siege 
and  capture  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War. 
The  details  of  the  last  of  these  events  will  have  to  be 
given  in  full,  to  show  the  significance  of  the  house, 
and  at  the  risk  of  giving  the  reader  a  shudder.  The 
long  legal  portion  of  its  story  may  be  passed  over  as 
briefly  as  the  lapse  of  three  centuries  will  admit  of  the 
feat,  without  competing  too  unduly  with  the  Com- 
mentaries of  Blackstone.  As  the  original  possessors 
of  Woodcroft  elected  to  engage  lawyers  to  discuss 
family  matters  for,  as  far  as  can  be  accurately  gauged, 
a  period  of  three  hundred  and  seventy-eight  years, 
the  record  of  their  litigious  activity  had  better  be  told 
in  legal  jargon.  Here  it  is  in  a  nutshell  or  a  folio. 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Third,  Herbert  and 
Roger  de  Woodcroft  held  of  the  Abbot  of  Burgh,  half 
a  Knight's  fee  in  Walton  and  Woodcroft,  which  was 
confirmed  to  the  convent  by  a  charter  in  the  same 
reign,  and  in  the  subsequent  reigns  of  Edward  the 
First  and  Edward  the  Second.  In  the  twenty-fourth 


252  MOATED  HOUSES 

year  of  Henry  the  Third,  a  fine  was  levied  between 
William,  son  of  Walter  de  Preston,  demandant,  and 
Gilbert  de  Preston,  deforciant,  of  one  carncate  of  land, 
with  its  appurtenances,  in  Woodcroft,  to  the  use  of 
the  said  William  de  Preston.  And  in  the  same  year 
a  fine  was  likewise  levied  of  six  acres  of  arable  land, 
and  ten  acres  of  wood,  with  their  appurtenances, 
in  Woodcroft,  between  William,  son  of  Roger 
de  Woodcroft,  demandant,  and  William  de  Preston, 
deforciant,  to  the  use  of  William  de  Preston.  And  in 
the  forty-sixth  year  of  the  same  reign,  a  fine  was  levied 
between  the  same  William  de  Preston,  demandant, 
and  Cecilia,  daughter  of  Robert  de  Woodcroft,  de- 
forciant, to  the  use  of  the  said  William,  of  one  messuage, 
one  carncate  of  arable  land,  five  acres  of  wood  arid 
fifteen  acres  of  meadow,  with  their  appurtenances  here. 
By  Inquisition  taken  in  the  fourth  year  of  Edward  the 
First  (this  was  the  time  when  that  warrior-king  was 
finally  subjugating  Wales,  and  was  being  addressed 
from  the  top  of  a  cliff  by  the  hero  of  Gray's  poem), 
Lawrence  de  Preston  was  certified  to  hold,  in 
Woodcroft,  a  fourth  part  of  one  Knight's  fee  of  the 
Abbot  of  Peterborough.  On  levying  the  Aid  for  the 
Knighthood  of  the  King's  son,  in  the  twentieth  year 
of  Edward  the  Third,  Thomas  de  Preston  accounted 
for  a  fourth  part  of  one  Knight's  fee  here,  of  which 
Walter  de  Preston  held  a  sixth  part.  In  the  second 
year  of  Richard  the  Second  (the  time  when  Langland 
was  writing  Piers  the  Plowman],  a  fine  was  levied 
of  Woodcroft  Manor  by  Hugh  Preston,  and  Alianore 
his  wife.  (This  quaint  spelling  of  our  modern  Eleanor 
should  be  noticed.)  We  have  from  henceforward  no 


WOODCROFT  253 

further  mention  of  this  lordship,  till  an  uncertain  date 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  probably  about  the 
time  of  the  battle  of  Northampton,  when  Nicholas 
Boxstede,  cousin  and  heir  to  Winemere  de  Preston, 
released  to  Robert  Fenne  Esquire,  and  Julian  (not 
Julia)  his  wife,  the  relict  of  Sir  John  Culpepper 
Knight,  and  the  heirs  of  their  bodies,  all  his  rights  in 
the  Manor  of  Woodcroft  and  in  all  his  other  lands 
and  tenements,  in  divers  villages  in  the  county  of 
Northampton.  In  the  same  reign  (at  an  apocryphal 
date  which  cannot  be  accepted),  Robert  Brudenell  and 
John  Buckstede  brought  their  action  against  Robert 
Fenne  Esquire,  and  Julian  his  wife,  for  the  recovery 
of  this  manor.  This  John  Buckstede,  who  was  the 
then  Lord  of  Woodcroft,  was  killed  in  1464  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Northampton.  This  fatality  oc- 
curred in  a  wayside  attack,  and  not  in  the  battle 
which  had  taken  place  four  years  previously.  But  at 
the  same  moment  when  John  Buckstede  lost  his  life 
from  falling  into  an  ambush,  King  Edward  the  Fourth 
was  marrying  Lady  Grey. 

Our  legal  history  now  skips  several  years  in  which 
lawlessness  was  the  chief  feature  in  English  life,  to 
pause  at  the  time  when  Henry  the  Eighth  ascended 
the  throne,  and  Erasmus  was  writing  The  Praises 
of  Folly.  The  possessors  of  Woodcroft  are  again 
seen  to  be  litigiously  busy.  A  fine  is  levied  between 
Sir  John  Heydon  Knight  and  others,  demandants, 
and  Wiliam  Palliser  and  his  wife,  deforciants,  of  a 
moiety  of  Woodcroft  Manor.  And  in  the  seventeenth 
year  of  the  same  reign  a  like  fine  was  levied  between 
William  Hermore  and  John  Brudenell,  of  the  other 


254  MOATED  HOUSES 

moiety  of  it,  and  of  tenements  in  Woodcroft  and  other 
townships.  This  last  moiety  appears  afterwards  to 
have  passed  into  the  hands  of  Francis  Pulter,  gentle- 
man, who  levied  a  fine  on  it,  at  the  time  when  Henry 
the  Eighth  lay  dying  in  the  royal  palace  at  West- 
minster, to  the  undisguised  relief  of  every  single 
person  about  him  who  had  the  slightest  expectation 
of  having  to  mount  the  scaffold  on  Tower  Hill  for  no 
reason  at  all,  and  at  a  moment's  notice.  The  other 
moiety  came  into  the  hands  of  a  mediaeval  represent- 
ative of  our  bankers  of  to-day.  Goldsmiths  had  then 
just  begun  to  initiate  this  paramount  and  useful  pro- 
fession (whose  inner  workings  are,  however,  still  a 
subject  of  conjecture  to  those  who  deposit  their  money 
with  them),  because  goldsmiths  were  the  only  trades- 
men who  had  to  have  strong-boxes.  Robert  Trapps 
was  this  particular  goldsmith's  name,  and  he  was  a 
citizen  of  London.  Between  this  ancestor  of  John 
Gilpin  Esquire,  and  a  William  Fitzwilliam  Esquire,  a 
further  fine  was  levied ;  and  the  legal  history  of  Wood- 
croft  is  brought  to  an  end,  possibly  not  too  sudden, 
by  the  discovery  of  a  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam  in  the 
agreeable  posture  of  being  seized  of  the  Manor  of 
Woodcroft,  its  appurtenances,  effects,  etc.  etc.,  at  the 
very  time  when  the  first  Puritan  emigrants  were 
beginning  to  hurry  aboard  ship,  and  James  the  First, 
like  some  Stuart  Porson,  was  hiccoughing  Latin, 
and  reeling  nightly  on  that  throne  before  which  the 
ladies  of  his  Court  also  lay  prone,  and  overtaken. 

Before  leaving  this  legal  side  of  Woodcroft's  his- 
tory, a  clue  may  be  given  to  those  who  have  tried  to 
get  through  the  maze,  by  recalling  to  their  memory, 


WOODCROFT  255 

or  assailing  it  with  it  unexpectedly  for  the  first  time, 
a  certain  firm  feudal  fact.  Under  that  engaging  form 
of  government,  which  may  still  profitably  occupy  the 
studious  hours  of  our  present  legislators  (barbarous 
as  it  may  at  first  sight  appear,  but  barbarous  only  with 
the  barbarity  of  the  times),  each  tenant  was  bound  to 
appear,  if  needful,  three  times  a  year  at  Court,  to  pay 
a  heavy  fine  or  rent  on  succession  to  his  estate,  and 
to  contribute  an  Aid  in  money  in  case  of  the  reigning 
King  happening  to  be  taken  prisoner  in  war ;  or 
"(presuming  a  more  lively  condition  of  affairs)  to  have 
a  son  who  had  lived  long  enough  to  be  made  a 
Knight,  or  a  daughter  who  had  lived  long  enough  to 
be  married.  Our  modern  Death  Duties  seem  here  to 
have  been  forecast,  as  everything  else  political  has 
been,  in  no  insignificant  manner. 

So  much  for  the  legal  side  of  Woodcroft.  But 
before  passing  to  the  more  romantic  and  coloured 
side  of  its  story,  it  will  be  necessary,  even  for  the 
sake  of  the  omen  of  siege  and  sack  coming  on,  to 
dwell  with  some  detail  on  certain  of  its  architectural 
features,  and  on  a  general  aspect  which,  for  reasons 
which  will  be  given,  will  be  found  to  be,  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  remarkable. 

One  of  these  reasons  can  be  given  in  a  few  words. 
The  first  impression  made  by  Woodcroft  Castle  on 
the  mind  of  any  English  architectural  expert  is  that 
it  is  French.  Accordingly,  very  little  research  soon 
shows  that  the  architect  who  had  the  building  of  the 
place  in  his  hands  was  fresh  from  erecting  an 
infirmary  at  Peterborough,  that  his  name  was  John 
of  Caux,  and  that  he  was  a  native  of  Normandy. 


256  MOATED  HOUSES 

This  is  not  the  first  time  that  the  history  of  these 
moated  houses  has  been  connected  with  that  form  of 
alliance  which  is  now  called  the  entente  cordiale. 
Markenfield  Hall  owes  much  to  the  French  builder 
who  was  fresh  from  putting  a  restoring  touch  to  the 
noble  minster  at  Ripon.  But  the  presence  of  a 
foreign  architecture  is  even  more  noticeable  in  Wood- 
croft  than  it  is  in  the  old  home  of  the  Yorkshire  race 
of  Knights.  The  date  of  Woodcroft  is  contempo- 
raneous with  the  battle  of  Falkirk,  which  is  another 
way  of  saying  that  it  is  a  fine  specimen  of  a  manor- 
house  of  the  days  of  Edward  the  First,  which  was 
hardly  even  in  those  rough  and  rugged  days  designed 
for  a  place  of  strength.  The  final  episode  of  its 
story  will  accentuate  this  fact,  if  it  does  not  prove  it 
to  demonstration.  Meanwhile  the  opportunity  pre- 
sents itself  for  offering  a  ground-plan.  The  house 
is  built  in  the  form  of  a  right  angle,  one  of  the  sides 
of  which  is  practically  twice  as  long  as  the  other.  A 
moat  entirely  surrounds  the  place,  though  it  only 
washes  the  walls  of  the  house  on  one  side.  In  the 
corner  of  the  angle  is  a  round  tower.  In  the- centre 
of  the  longer  wing  is  the  main  entrance,  which  not 
only  leads  into  the  house,  but  used  in  more  ancient 
and  airy  days  to  lead  right  through  it,  without  the 
assistance  of  a  door  on  the  other  side  to  shut  out  the 
draught,  the  rain,  the  snow,  the  midnight  marauder, 
or  anybody  or  anything  else  that  happened  to  be 
abroad,  on  inhospitable  business  bent.  At  first  sight 
the  place  only  seems  to  have  two  storeys,  but  a  closer 
investigation  prevents  this  tale  from  being  told,  and 
a  third  storey  is  discovered  over  the  gateway,  which 


WOODCROFT  257 

at  first  sight  might  have  been  mistaken  for  another 
tower.  Whatever  it  is  used  for  now,  it  was  probably 
used  formerly  for  a  chapel.  Everybody  prayed 
assiduously  in  those  dark  days  in  which  England  was 
merry.  Two  other  towers  which  originally  decorated 
the  house  were  probably  destroyed  when  a  Parlia- 
mentarian general,  after  having  surveyed  the  position 
for  a  few  minutes,  gave  as  word  of  command 
"Artillery";  and  that  the  house  was  as  practically 
indefensible  as  subsequent  events  will  show,  seems 
proved  in  advance  by  the  fact  that  neither  of  these 
two  towers  seem  to  have  been  embattled.  The 
specimens  that  remain  at  Woodcroft  of  this  form  of 
decoration  have  plain  parapets.  The  ground-floor 
windows  of  the  house  are  all  small.  Those  of  the 
upper  storey  were  all  of  one  light,  with  a  transom. 
And,  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  these  days,  a  singular 
feature  of  our  ancestors'  idea  of  building  a  liveable 
house  was  poignantly  marked.  A  connecting  stair- 
case was  a  factor  either  forgotten  by  the  architect,  or 
designedly  left  out  of  his  calculations.  That  is  to  say, 
in  other  words,  that  the  basement  had  no  way  of 
communication  with  the  upper  storey.  This  seems  a 
very  artful  touch  in  the  method  of  secluding  the 
inhabitants  from  undesirable  visitors,  and  suggests 
that  when  the  moat  was  of  no  avail  the  inmates  went 
up  to  bed  by  ladder,  and  when  they  were  safely 
landed,  drew  it  up  after  them.  The  only  other  possible 
explanation  of  the  existence  of  a  house  thus  separated 
from  itself  is  the  suggestion  that  the  ground-floor  was 
simply  used  for  the  purpose  of  storage,  and  this 
seems  to  be  simply  absurd.  For  the  rest,  the  moat 
17 


258  MOATED  HOUSES 

encloses  a  square  which  was  originally  fronted  by 
buildings.  Offices  of  wood  and  plaster  were  probably 
their  form,  and  time  has  been  too  strong  for  them. 
To  prevent  disappointment,  or  astonishment,  or  both, 
it  had  better  now  be  clearly  laid  down,  that  the 
interior  of  this  house  has  been  so  artistically  modern- 
ized, that  no  idea  can  be  gathered  of  its  original  state, 
and  no  surprise  should  be  felt  that  the  first  view  of 
its  exterior  suggests  that  it  is  French. 

A  certain  page  of  its  history  has  now  to  be  read 
which  does  not  in  its  startling  brutality  suggest  any 
connection  with  that  race  which  has  given  to  a  world, 
still  so  much  in  want  of  it,  the  language  of  diplomacy. 
And  it  may  be  said  before  beginning  the  story,  that 
it  is  a  strange  and  in  some  respects  a  regrettable 
thing,  that  the  architecture  of  France  should  display 
itself  so  clearly  in  an  English  moated  house  which 
must  always  bear  on  its  walls  the  ineffaceable  stigma 
of  one  of  the  most  brutal  episodes  of  the  Great 
Civil  War.  That  significant  episode  in  the  nation's 
struggle  for  civil  and  religious  liberty  was  drawing 
to  its  close  in  the  repeated  defeats  of  the  royal  cause, 
when  on  a  certain  day  in  June,  1648,  Woodcroft 
Castle  was  occupied  for  Charles  the  First  by  a 
singular  commander  who  had  control  over  a 
strange  garrison.  The  commander  was  a  clergy- 
man of  the  Church  of  England  and  Chaplain  to 
the  King  (who  was  then  admiring  the  beauties  of 
the  Isle  of  Wight  from  his  prison  at  Carisbrooke) : 
the  garrison  was  formed  of  a  troop  of  volunteer 
cavalry  which  the  intrepid  and  militant  divine  had 
succeeded  in  raising  in  Lincolnshire.  His  name  was 


*  ~~~  »•***£«:? 


WOODCROFT  261 

Doctor  Michael    Hudson,  and  when  he  went  up  to 
one  of  the  towers  of  Woodcroft  to  gauge  the  possi- 
bilities of  a  successful  military  occupation  of  the  place 
in  the  cause  of  his  master,  they  must  have  seemed  so 
remote  that  his  mind  may  well  have  wandered  into  a 
retrospect  of  his  strange  and  varied  life,  so  soon  to 
draw  to  its  close,  and  in  which  retrospect  we  may 
take  the  opportunity  of  accompanying  him.     Born  in 
Westmoreland  of  poor  parents,  educated  at  Oxford, 
a  Fellow  of  Queen's,  his  burly  appearance  and  bluff 
manners  did  not  conceal  from  Charles  the  First's  eyes, 
not  unpenetrating  eyes  (where  men  and  not  measures 
were    concerned),     the    underlying    qualities    of    an 
integrity   and   a   steadfastness    which    nothing  could 
shake.     These  qualities  were  lamentably  lacking  in 
many  of  the  more  brilliant  among  the  Cavalier  sup- 
porters.     Hudson  indeed  might  have  been  called  in 
these  days  the  Fighting  Parson,  and  on  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War  he  at  once  threw  aside  the  Prayer 
Book  for  the  sword,  or,  to  define  his  attitude  to  men 
and  things  more  correctly,  he  took  his  Prayer  Book  in 
his  left  hand  and  a  Cavalier  rapier  in  his  right.    Thus 
adorned    for  ecclesiastical  office,   he  viewed   the  un- 
decided  day   of   Edgehill,    not    without    interference 
personally  in  that  matter  of  desultory  cavalry  charges 
delivered  more  or  less  at  random  in  an  October  mist. 
Under  the  same  conditions  he  became  a  well-known 
figure    at    that    strange  Court,  half   palace  and  [half 
detective   bureau,   which  Charles    the    First   held    at 
Oxford.     Scotland  Yard,  and  what  is  left  of  White- 
hall,   still    adjoin    each    other.       In    the   days    when 
Henrietta    Maria    and    her    attendants   walked    the 


262  MOATED  HOUSES 

groves  of  Merton  College  gardens,  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  say  which  party  predominated  in  a  motley 
company  of  professional  courtiers,  of  Puritans  dis- 
o-uised  as  High  Church  of  England  men,  of  Jesuits 

o  ^5  fj  J 

disguised  as  servitors  in  the  royal  kitchen,  and  of 
trained  political  spies  disguised  as  opportunity  best 
suggested,  and  very  often  hiding  their  detective  pro- 
pensities under  a  woman's  dress.  The  Secret  Service, 
however,  was  not  a  profession  in  which  Michael 
Hudson  would  ever  have  been  likely  to  shine,  though 
adverse  critics  have  gone  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  he 
was  in  effect  an  enrolled  member  of  that  august  and 
secret  body,  and  only  assumed  a  boyish  bluntness  of 
speech,  and  an  almost  Alsatian  truculence  of  manner, 
for  the  purpose  of  putting  wary  people  off  their 
guard.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  King,  who  saw  his 
disposition  and  had  satisfied  himself  of  his  honesty, 
only  used  him  on  those  unfortunately  rare  missions 
when  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  had  to  be  told, 
and  that  as  bluntly  as  possible.  Then  the  time 
passed  when  even  such  honest  services  were  of  avail. 
Billow  on  billow,  wave  upon  wave  of  calamity  swept 
over  the  King's  cause.  The  Reverend  Michael 
Hudson  saw  his  royal  master  a  prisoner,  Church  and 
State  prostrate,  the  military  genius  of  Cromwell 
instinct  in  a  whole  nation,  and  nothing  left  for  him 
personally  to  do  but  to  throw  away  the  Prayer  Book 
which  he  had  hitherto  kept  in  his  left  hand,  and 
apply  it,  as  he  had  long  since  applied  the  right  one, 
to  the  purposes  of  the  sword.  He  seems  indeed  to 
have  determined  on  what  may  be  called  a  military 
suicide.  The  regiment  of  horse  enrolled  in  Lincoln- 


WOODCROFT  263 

shire  was  no  doubt  instructed  in  the  same  tenets. 
And  Hudson  would  have  been  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  shrink  from  telling  them  frankly  that  their 
hurried  enrolment  meant  in  plain  words  a  fight  to 
the  death.  Woodcroft  Castle  was  not  selected  inten- 
tionally as  the  scene  of  this  last  adventure  for  a  cause 
already  lost.  Hudson  had  really  chosen  it  as  a  base 
from  which  to  strike  effectively  at  the  enemy's  line 
of  communication.  Loot  was  in  prospect.  And  loot, 
even  though  prospective,  was  necessary  when  there 
v  was  no  such  thing  as  pay.  The  enemy,  however, 
was  by  the  June  of  1648  not  sufficiently  occupied 
elsewhere  to  be  prevented  from  detaching,  mass- 
ing, and  throwing  upon  the  devoted  garrison  of 
Woodcroft  a  force  which  made  a  successful  holding 
of  the  place  a  matter  of  absolute  impossibility. 
Michael  Hudson  must  have  realized  this  in  a  moment 
when  from  one  of  those  Woodcroft  towers  now  de- 
molished, he  saw  the  Parliamentary  force  in  position 
before  the  house  on  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  June. 

Before  he  had  finally  deserted  the  lectern  for  the 
sword,  Hudson  had  made  himself  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  the  Rubric.  He  was  equally  well 
versed  in  a  certain  Code  for  the  conduct  of  the  Civil 
War,  which  had  been  drawn  up  and  put  to  practical 
demonstration  by  the  heads  of  that  Republican  army 
which  was  now  in  force  before  this  Northamptonshire 
moated  house.  He  knew  well  that  one  of  those 
provisions  dealt,  and  dealt  inexorably,  with  the  fate  of 
commanders  for  the  King  who  risked  their  assailants' 
lives  by  holding  a  place  which,  from  a  military  point 
of  view,  was  not  defensible.  In  the  certain  event 


264  MOATED  HOUSES 

of  a  capture,  the  whole  of  the  garrison  was  liable  to 
be  put  to  the  sword.  The  fate  of  Hudson,  therefore, 
and  his  soldiers  was  sealed  when  a  summons  to 
surrender  was  met  by  a  contemptuous  refusal.  A, 
cannonade  was  immediately  opened.  A  few  outlying 
earthworks  which  had  been  hastily  thrown  up  were 
carried  by  assault.  The  moat  was  crossed  at  a  point 
where  it  did  not  wash  the  walls  of  the  house,  but 
not  without  considerable  loss  of  life  from  a  fire 
directed  from  the  roof  and  the  lower  windows.  And 
then  the  Parliamentarians,  smarting  under  the  casu- 
alties caused  by  a  vain  resistance,  entered  the  house 
avenging  sword  in  hand.  A  desperate  fight  took 
place  on  the  staircase.  Every  inch  of  it  was  con- 
tested in  a  prolonged  and  desperate  hand-to-hand 
fight  which  clogged  its  steps  with  corpses.  On 
these  the  victorious  and  now  maddened  besiegers 
mounted  slowly,  till  a  final  ascent  had  been  effected 
and  a  final  obstacle  surmounted  which  drove  Michael 
Hudson  and  the  small  courageous  remnant  of  the 
garrison  on  to  the  roof.  Quarter  may  in  that  last 
moment  have  been  offered  and  accepted.  It  was 
certainly  not  granted.  The  final  words  which 
Hudson  said  to  the  officer  who  offered  him  his  life 
on  the  surrender  of  his  sword  will  never  be  known. 
What  is  known  is  that  Michael  Hudson,  instead  of 
surrendering,  had  to  throw  himself  over  the  battle- 
ment and  hang  there  between  heaven  and  earth, 
clinging  to  a  water-spout.  Both  those  clinging  hands 
were  then  cut  off,  and  he  fell  into  the  moat.  It 
seems  that  even  with  his  hands  off  he  contrived  to 
swim  to  its  banks  and  had  also  sufficient  power  of 


WOODCROFT  265 

speech  left  in  him  to  ask  the  enemies  waiting  for  him 
on  the  other  side,  with  eyes  upturned  and  Cromwellian 
rapiers  drawn,  to  allow  him  the  favour  of  dying  on 
dry  land.  The  granting  of  this  request  was  accom- 
panied by  a  blow  from  the  butt  end  of  a  musket, 
which  beat  his  brains  out.  A  crop-haired  shopkeeper 
of  Stamford  who  had  left  off  cutting  hair  and  had 
put  his  head  into  a  steel  cap,  then  performed  some 
funeral  rites.  He  cut  out  the  tongue  of  Charles  the 
First's  Chaplain  and  hawked  it  about  the  country  as 
<an  advertisement  of  his  own  prowess. 

It  is  a  disputed  point  as  to  where  the  remains  of 
Michael  Hudson  were  buried ;  and  the  place  of 
sepulture  seems  a  point  outside  the  question  in  a 
consideration  of  such  a  strenuous  life.  But  sentiment 
will  always  prevail  in  this  final  matter  ;  and  it  would 
be  pleasant  to  think  that,  by  the  help  of  some  power- 
ful Royalist  influence,  the  mutilated  remains  of  this 
intrepid  Cavalier  parson  were  laid  to  their  last  rest  in 
some  green  and  quiet  Northamptonshire  churchyard, 
or,  as  has  been  averred  by  some  authorities,  within  the 
grey  walls  of  the  celebrated  Oxford  College  which 
had  been  the  scene  of  his  setting  out  on  many  a 
perilous  mission,  and  where  his  royal  and  unflinch- 
ingly served  master  had  held  his  fleeting  and  mimic 
Court.  Where  Michael  Hudson  was  buried  will 
always  remain  a  disputed  matter.  But  what  is  a 
matter  beyond  dispute  is  this.  So  far  as  his  connec- 
tion with  Woodcroft  Castle  is  concerned,  it  can  be 
said  that  he  faithfully  served  both  King  and  Church, 
and  that  he  was  murdered  in  the  cause  of  both. 


XIX 

THE    RYE    HOUSE 

VISITORS  to  the  Rye  House  may  enjoy  the 
double  experience  of  hearing  the  latest  music- 
hall  songs  and  viewing  the  scene  of  a  plot  in 
the  days  of  Charles  the  Second.  In  fine  weather  the 
wonted  roar  goes  up  among  the  woods  of  "  I  found 
diamonds  in  Amsterdam,"  or  some  kindred  vocal  gem 
at  the  moment  in  vogue.  When  it  rains,  the  same 
kind  of  chorus  salutes  the  historian's  ear  from  glass 
palaces  cunningly  devised  for  dancing,  or  from  rooms 
set  apart  for  such  music  in  a  neighbouring  and 
supposititiously  ancient  inn.  Tuned  by  such  sur- 
roundings to  the  proper  appreciation  of  the  past,  and 
inspired  indeed  by  an  almost  feverish  desire  to  see 
anything  either  ancient  or  modern,  provided  he  can 
get  out  of  earshot  of  these  melodies  of  to-day,  the 
visitor  hurries  across  dank  pleasure-grounds  artfully 
intersected  by  suspicious-looking  dykes,  and  pleasantly 
interpolated  with  merry-go-rounds,  till  he  finds  him- 
self handed  over  by  one  guide  to  another,  and  at  last 
standing  outside  a  gate-house  not  altogether  unmere- 
triciously  mediaeval.  The  roars  and  screams  of  "our 
young  barbarians  all  at  play  "  even  now  still  reach 
the  visitor's  ears,  as  he  dives  desperately  through  the 


266 


THE     RYE     HOUSE 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  267 

archway,  and  finds  himself  in  a  room  full  of  curios, 
including  the  inevitable  bed  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  A 
voluble  guide  lends  humour,  if  not  conviction,  to  the 
show,  and  the  information  is  soon  given  that  Elizabeth's 
is  not  the  only  bed  to  be  seen  on  the  premises.  The 
celebrated  Bed  of  Ware  is  in  fact  safely  housed  near 
a  glass  dancing  saloon,  and  its  size,  its  possibilities, 
probably  more  than  the  beautiful  carving  of  satyrs  on 
its  head-board,  still  excite  the  jokes,  the  curiosity,  or 
the  admiration  of  the  connoisseurs  of  Bethnal  Green. 
'A  Shakespearean  memory  is  summoned  up  by  this 
domestic  prodigy,  made  in  the  days  when  forty  people 
slept  in  one  bed  with  the  crowns  of  each  other's  heads 
touching  each  other,  and  legs  and  bodies  radiating 
like  the  spokes  of  a  cart-wheel  from  that  cumulative 
intellectual  centre.  Sir  Toby  Belch's  pronouncement 
on  the  subject  makes  itself  heard  between  imaginary 
hiccups.  He  says  in  Twelfth  Night,  advising  on  the 
form  of  the  challenge  :  "  Go,  write  it  in  a  martial  hand  ; 
be  curst  and  brief ;  it  is  no  matter  how  witty,  so  it  be 
eloquent  and  full  of  invention  :  if  thou  '  thou'st '  him 
some  thrice,  it  shall  not  be  amiss  ;  and  as  many  lies  as 
will  lie  in  thy  sheet  of  paper,  although  the  sheet  were 
big  enough  for  the  bed  of  Ware  in  England,  set  'em 
down."  The  reference  would  make  a  good  puzzle  in 
a  literary  competition.  It  suggests  that  Shakespeare 
must  have  seen  this  Rye  House  relic. 

Meanwhile  an  impatient  guide  leads  the  way  up  a 
spiral  staircase,  in  which  an  interesting  brick  hand- 
rail and  newel  lends  the  visitor  aid,  into  that  con- 
spirators' room  which  in  many  of  these  old  houses 
is  as  nearly  inevitable  as  Elizabeth's  bed ;  and  in 


268  MOATEU  HOUSES 

which  the  majority  of  conspirators  would  never  have 
thought  of  conspiring.  We  are  now  on  the  supposed 
scene  of  the  Rye  House  Plot.  Carved  oak  furniture 
of  the  period  is  abundantly  displayed  to  heighten  the 
illusion,  but  despite  the  enthusiasm  kindled  by  the 
scene  of  its  display,  a  disquieting  suggestion  of 
Wardour  Street  steals  over  the  senses.  Antiques, 
however,  cannot  always  be  guaranteed,  and  for  the 
rest  all  is  as  it  should  be.  Wide  chimneys  :  iron  dogs  : 
tiled  floor  :  massive  door  :  immense  thickness  of  walls  : 
portraits  of  everybody  connected  with  the  plot,  from 
Rumbold,  owner  of  the  Rye  House  at  the  time,  down 
to  Jeffreys,  who  sentenced  him  to  be  hung,  drawn 
and  quartered ;  till  we  come  to  a  window  through 
which  (according  to  the  guide)  the  conspirators  were 
to  shoot  Charles  the  Second  as  he  was  returning 
from  Newmarket.  It  looks  to  be  about  55  yards 
distant  from  the  existing  road,  along  which  (also 
according  to  the  guide)  Charles  the  Second  was  to 
have  been  returning.  The  distance  seems  excessive 
for  a  chance  shot  on  which  so  much  depended  ;  nor 
does  the  display  of  some  firearms  of  the  period 
increase  a  belief  in  long-range  capabilities.  Plots, 
however,  when  they  have  to  be  adapted  for  the  use 
of  pleasure-houses,  must  be  made  up  to  date.  Local 
guides  only  do  their  business,  and  should  never  be 
contradicted.  Maps,  plans,  and  historical  documents 
can  be  consulted  when  travellers  get  home.  If  they 
haven't  had  a  correct  version  of  what  was  intended 
to  occur  in  1683,  they  will  have  seen  the  Rye  House 
at  all  events.  As  for  the  guide's  view  of  the  matter, 
let  us  be  thankful  for  the  professional  versatility  of 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  269 

these  amusing  and  fluent  showmen,  in  their  honest 
attempts  to  focus  the  past  for  us ;  to  bring  un- 
fortunately divergent  events  into  one  common  plane  ; 
to  give  us  a  bird's-eye  view  of  everything  at  a  glance, 
even  if  that  everything  should  happen  to  be  an 
impossibility. 

The  Rye  House  Plot  is  in  itself  interesting,  not 
only  because,  as  the  plan  was  laid,  it  was  more  likely 
to  have  ended  in  success  and  blood  than  any  con- 
spiracy of  its  kind  in  English  history,  but  also 
because  it  was  the  direct  outcome  of  a  succession  of 
masterly  and  Machiavellian  moves  on  the  part  of 
Charles  the  Second  which  many  historians  have 
failed  to  notice,  and  which  entitle  the  Merry  Monarch 
to  the  honour  of  being  the  ablest  of  the  Stuarts,  as 
John  was  the  ablest  of  the  Angevins. 

The  political  position  which  gave  birth  to  the 
meditated  violence  may  be  described  in  a  few  words. 
Charles  the  Second  saw  his  personal  popularity 
fading  at  the  very  moment  that  his  arbitrary  Ministers 
thought  that  they  had  finally  got  him  into  a  corner.  He 
appeared  to  Parliament  to  be  in  that  dilemma,  because 
he  pretended  to  be  frightened  at  the  imminence  of 
another  outbreak  of  civil  war,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  never  went  anywhere  without  being  sur- 
rounded by  his  life-guards.  This  was  really  only  a 
royal  ruse.  It  deceived  those  it  was  intended  to. 
Parliament  was  certain  that  a  total  absence  of  money 
ministered  to  this  unusual  and  cowed  attitude  of  their 
brave  yet  Merry  Monarch.  They  thought,  therefore, 
that  they  had  only  to  keep  on  refusing  supplies  in 
a  strictly  constitutional  manner,  for  it  only  to  be  a 


270  MOATED  HOUSES 

matter  of  time  for  Charles  to  be  at  their  feet.  Specu- 
lations on  certainties,  however,  are  sometimes  mislead- 
ing. They  proved  to  be  so  in  this  case.  For  just  at 
the  very  moment  when  Parliament  believed  that  the 
penury  of  the  Treasury  left  Charles  at  their  mercy, 
they  made  the  unfortunate  discovery  that  a  pecuniary 
arrangement  which  he  had  made  behind  their  backs 
while  he  was  riding  about  the  country  closely  guarded, 
and  pretending  to  be  frightened,  had  taken  the  form 
of  a  private  subsidy  payable  by  France,  which  made 
him  completely  independent  of  Parliamentary  aid. 
Charles  took  a  tactician's  view  of  the  situation.  In 
the  midst  of  the  confusion  caused  by  the  discovery  he 
struck  his  final  blow.  He  dissolved  the  Parliament 
he  had  hoodwinked,  and  in  the  kingly  confidence 
engendered  by  the  knowledge  of  an  ample  private 
balance  at  his  bankers,  appealed  by  Royal  Proclama- 
tion to  the  judgment  of  the  nation  at  large. 

The  answer  was  one  universal  burst  of  loyalty 
which  sent  Shaftesbury,  who  had  led  the  Opposition, 
packing  to  that  Amsterdam  whose  possibilities  have 
already  been  sounded  at  the  opening  of  this  paper,  and 
threw  the  whole  of  his  party  into  the  utmost  political 
dejection.  They  had  cause  for  it.  They  had,  in  the 
most  complete  acceptation  of  the  term,  been  dished. 
Some  people,  however,  never  know  when  they  are 
beaten  and  in  a  condition  to  be  decimated,  unfortu- 
nately for  themselves  and  others.  Lord  Essex,  Lord 
Howard  of  Ettrick,  Lord  Russell,  Hampden,  and 
Algernon  Sidney,  instead  of  realizing  that  in  the 
recent  political  engagement  with  the  King  they  had 
in  a  figurative  sense  lost  all  their  ammunition,  all  their 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  273 

baggage,  and  all  their  artillery,  were  subject  to  the 
fatal  delusion  that  everything  could  be  remedied  by 
something  which  they  called  an  Association,  and  that 
by  an  agitation  conducted  on  strictly  lawful  lines,  a 
battle  which  had  already  been  hopelessly  lost  might 
be  turned  into  a  victory.  A  more  unfortunate  thing 
for  them  than  their  own  delusion  was  the  presence 
on  the  outskirts  of  their  party  of  a  band  of  hangers- 
on,  political  camp  -  followers  of  the  defeated  host, 
consisting  of  retired  and  hipped  colonels  of  Cromwell's 
army,  an  under-sheriff  who  had  taken  Government 
pay  under  false  pretences,  and  a  lot  of  broken- 
down  merchants  and  tradesmen  :  butchers  who  had 
deserted  meat  for  politics,  bakers  who  had  let  their 
ovens  cool  while  their  brains  grew  heated,  and  who 
had  most  of  them  thrown  up  their  hats  and  huzzaed 
before  the  scaffold  at  Whitehall.  The  result  was 
what  invariably  happens  under  similar  conditions. 
Agitation  conducted  on  strictly  lawful  lines  not  being 
to  these  people's  fancy,  or  moving  too  slowly  to  suit 
their  feverish  tastes,  they  decided  to  set  up  an 
Association  of  their  own.  This  new  Association 
was  of  course  entirely  outside  the  knowledge  of  the 
eminent  men  whom  they  still  chose  to  speak  of  as 
their  leaders,  but  to  whom  their  undistinguished  per- 
sonalities were  completely  unknown. 

One  of  these  baulked  patriots,  by  name  Rumbold, 
happened  to  own  the  Rye  House.  At  this  time  it 
was  a  considerable  building  enclosing  a  courtyard, 
and  views  are  still  to  be  seen  of  it  which  represent 
gabled  fronts  abutting  on  to  the  gate-house,  and 
windows  underneath  them  of  early  Tudor  date. 
18 


274  MOATED  HOUSES 

Through  one  of  these  windows  overlooking  a  by- 
lane  from  the  main  road  Rumbold  had  seen,  on  set 
occasions  in  the  year,  the  august  yet  unpretentious 
sight  of  the  King  returning  from  a  race  meeting 
accompanied  by  a  very  sparse  guard.  When  Charles 
the  Second  went  to  Newmarket,  he  liked  to  go  as 
nearly  as  he  could  (in  days  when  the  real  thing  was 
impossible)  incognito.  As  he  had  no  fear  of  his 
subjects  and  liked  to  get  to  a  journey's  end  as  soon 
as  possible,  he  was  not  afraid  of  short  cuts.  It  was 
a  short  cut  issuing  from  the  main  road  to  Cambridge 
which  brought  the  gay  but  unpretentious  royal  coach, 
escorted  by  a  few  life-guards  on  tired  horses,  under 
the  inhospitable  windows  of  Rumbold's  brooding 
house.  The  gloomy  owner  would  have  seen  that 
small  procession  pass  many  times  without  taking 
any  particular  notice  of  it,  till  the  day  came  when 
Charles's  well-practised  stroke  of  dissimulation  had 
put  the  Opposition  on  its  back  and  Rumbold  with  it. 
In  an  instant  the  unappeased  promptings  of  revenge 
turned  a  common  sight  into  a  portent.  Rumbold  saw 
the  possibilities  of  a  catastrophe  in  that  small  cavalcade 
returning  so  unostentatiously  from  Newmarket.  He 
noticed,  what  he  had  never  taken  note  of  before,  that 
its  passage  through  the  by-lane  led  it  immediately 
under  the  walls  of  some  of  his  own  outhouses,  and 
that  these  walls  were  already  loopholed.  He  noticed 
also  that  at  this  point  the  road  was  so  narrow  that 
two  carriages  could  not  pass  it  abreast.  As  in  a  flash 
of  infernal  lightning,  he  saw  Murder  beckoning. 

As  the  means  through  which  a  possibility  might 
be  turned  into  an  accomplished  and  bloody  fact  seemed 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  275 

to  call  for  some  knowledge  of  arms  of  precision,  and 
the  best  place  to  use  them  from,  he  had  some  guarded 
talk  with  two  friends  of  his  who  happened  to  be  old 
soldiers.  One  of  them  was  a  Colonel  Rumsey,  a 
discontented  Republican  officer  who  had  distinguished 
himself  in  Portugal,  as  well  as  in  the  Civil  War ;  the 
other  was  a  certain  Lieut. -Colonel  Walcot,  who  had 
also  had  hopes  of  great  things  when  the  cause  of  Crom- 
well was  the  cause  of  his  army.  Rumbold  knew  that 
both  these  veterans  had  long  suffered  from  the  pangs 
of  hopes  deferred,  and  were  furthermore  smarting,  as 
he  himself  was,  from  the  recent  rebuff  given  to  their 
party  by  the  diplomacy  of  Charles  the  Second.  A 
few  guarded  preliminaries  showed  him  that  there 
was  no  need  for  talk  to  be  guarded  at  all.  At  the 
first  hint  of  the  possibility  he  had  seen  from  the 
window  of  the  Rye  House,  both  old  soldiers  pricked 
up  attentive  ears.  A  reconnaissance  of  the  by-lane 
running;  from  the  main  Cambridge  road,  made 

^>  o  * 

very  likely  after  a  solemn  lunch,  which  had  been 
preceded  by  an  unusually  long  grace,  turned  under 
their  distorted  imaginations  into  a  vision  of  Charles 
the  Second's  coach  overturned,  streaming  with  royal 
blood,  and  blotted  from  sight  in  a  cloud  of  dust  and 
the  dense  smoke  of  a  volley  fired  point  blank  through 
those  outhouse  walls  which  were  already  loopholed. 
A  short  military  inspection  by  the  two  military  experts 
would  have  fixed  the  absolute  site  for  the  intended 
scene.  The  narrow  passage  (rather  than  by-way), 
with  a  thick  hedge  and  ditch  on  the  left  hand,  on 
the  right  the  long  range  of  buildings  used  for  corn- 
chambers  and  stables,  with  several  doors  and  windows 


276  MOATED  HOUSES 

looking  on  to  the  narrow  passage  hardly  worthy  of 
the  name  of  road,  to  say  nothing  of  the  loopholes 
through  which  a  great  many  men  might  shoot,  were 
familiar  factors  to  two  soldiers  who  remembered 
Rupert's  fiery  forays  and  the  bloody  experiences  of 
many  a  midnight  raid.  They  saw  in  these  surround- 
ings of  the  Rye  House  every  single  factor  which 
was  needful  for  an  absolutely  perfect  ambuscade. 
The  military  view  of  the  matter  was  given  with 
military  decision.  The  Rye  House  Plot  was  on 
foot. 

It  would  have  been  better  for  Rumbold,  and  for 
the  plot  also,  if,  now  that  military  opinion  had  been 
got  as  to  the  fitness  of  the  scene  for  the  purpose,  the 
military  influence  had  been  removed  from  it  altogether, 
or  had  been  confined  to  the  two  old  soldiers  who 
had  so  unguardedly  given  it  voice.  In  plain  truth, 
a  cart  overturned  in  the  by-way,  a  signal  given  of 
the  King's  approach  from  the  top  of  the  gate-house 
by  Rumbold,  and  Rumsey  and  Walcot  crouched 
behind  the  loopholes  of  the  stables  or  garden  wall 
with  musketoons  carefully  adjusted  to  an  aim  which 
had  already  been  carefully  marked,  were  the  only 
three  principals  wanted  to  turn  the  scheme  into 
an  assassination,  without  any  danger  from  outside. 
Fortunately  for  Charles  the  Second,  the  two  old 
soldiers  seem  to  have  been  inspired  by  those  memories 
of  the  Civil  War  which  have  already  been  mentioned, 
but  which  were  not  in  the  least  helpful  to  the  enter- 
prise in  hand.  Military  meddling  on  a  large  scale 
commenced.  A  small  army  corps  had  to  be  enrolled. 
All  sorts  of  guns  were  necessary  :  when  all  that  was 


RYE   HOUSE 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  279 

wanted  was  for  one  man  to  stand  behind  a  wall  and 
shoot  straight.     Blunderbusses,  muskets,  pistols,  cara- 
binests,  were  hidden  in  boats  under  coals  and  oysters, 
and  carried  into  the  Rye  House  from  the  river  Lea.    At 
least  forty  men  were  enrolled  in  a  plot  which  could 
have  been  carried  out  by  three,  and  which  began  to 
assume  the  dangerous  dimensions  of  a  small  rising. 
Misdirected  military  ardour,  growing  by  what  it  fed 
on,  turned  the  shooting  of  a  man  from  behind  a  wall 
into  a  sort  of  field-day.       All  sorts   of  unnecessary 
^  dispositions  were  made,  and,  what  was  worse,  com- 
mitted to  paper.     Four  men  were  to  be  sent  towards 
Newmarket  to  find  out  the  colour  of  the  King's  coach. 
Others  were  to  bring  news  of  how  many  men  formed 
his  escort,  though  it  was  a  perfectly  well-established 
fact  that  six  was  the  limit.     These  discoveries  made, 
everybody  was  to  be  in  readiness  in  the  house  and 
yard   to    rush    out   on    horseback    or   on    foot   at   a 
given   signal.     Some    dressed   as   labourers  were   to 
overthrow  a  cart :  others  to  fight  the  six  life-guards 
who  would  be  riding  on  tired  horses.     Others  were 
to  shoot  the  coachman.     Others  were  to  shoot  the 
postilions.     Finally,  some  one  was  to  shoot  the  King. 
Congratulations  were   exchanged  on  the   completion 
of  this  over-elaborated  programme,    and   there   was 
some  promiscuous  drinking  at  the  neighbouring  inn. 
It  was  called  the  King's  Arms  in  those  days,  and  was 
kept   by   a    man    named    Shepherd,    who   had    also 
promised  to  do  his  best. 

Whether  Shepherd's  "best"  did  not  take  the  form 
of  saddling  his  nag  one  dark  night  and  riding  up  to 
London  to  lay  an  Information  is  not  certain.  But 


280  MOATED  HOUSES 

preparations  so  out  of  proportion  cannot  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  countryside.  Somebody  took  too 
much  wine.  A  stranger  put  his  head  into  one  of  the 
rooms  of  the  King's  Arms  where  some  of  the  con- 
spirators were  drinking,  and  withdrew  it  at  once  with 
deep  apologies.  The  usual  feeling  of  some  unseen 
danger  menacing  fell  upon  the  guilty  crew,  and  one 
of  them  named  Keiling,  who  was  deeply  implicated, 
thought  it  time  to  consult  the  authorities.  Proclama- 
tions were  at  once  issued,  but  at  first  only  one  man 
was  taken.  The  others  fled  in  all  directions  like  a 
covey  of  scared  partridges.  But  a  common  desire 
possessed  them  more  wholly  than  their  late  desire  to 
kill  the  King,  and  that  was  to  save  their  own  necks 
by  turning  King's  evidence.  Keiling,  West,  Rumsey, 
and  Shepherd  were  the  first  four  who  caught  the 
Judge's  eye  in  this  race  for  Infamy,  and  their  united 
testimony,  fully  spiced  with  unnecessary  lies,  soon  sent 
Colonel  Walcot  to  Tyburn,  though  he  tried  to  prove 
that  at  the  very  time  chat  he  was  supposed  to  be 
trying  to  make  Charles  the  Second  his  victim,  he 
was  himself  being  made  a  victim  by  the  gout. 

Little  ingenuity  was  needed  by  the  Crown  lawyers 
to  bring  the  Rye  House  plotters  to  the  scaffold.  The 
whole  of  their  ability  and  that  of  the  presiding  Judge 
was  spent  in  an  infamous  attempt,  which  ought  never 
to  have  been  successful,  to  fasten  the  guilt  of  the 
would-be  assassins  on  several  eminent  men  who 
might  never  have  heard  of  the  Rye  House  at  all,  if 
they  hadn't  had  to  read  about  it  in  their  own  indict- 
ment. The  utmost  extent  of  harm  that  Lord  Essex, 
Lord  Russell,  Hampden,  and  Algernon  Sidney  had 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  281 

done  was  to  form  themselves  into  an  Association. 
They  still  believed  that  a  Parliamentary  opposition 
to  the  triumphant  Court  was  possible,  without  running 
the  risk  of  the  axe  or  the  halter.  Sir  George  Jeffreys 
soon  undeceived  them  on  this  point.  He  showed 
the  jury  in  the  clearest  possible  way,  and  in  the  face 
of  the  clearest  possible  sworn  evidence,  that  two 
distinct  things,  the  Association  and  the  Rye  House 
Plot,  were  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  that  by 
the  laws  of  England  they  could  not  possibly  be  other- 
wise ;  and  he  left  the  final  decision  of  the  case  to  the 
public  hangman. 

Such  is  the  plain  story  of  the  Rye  House  Plot. 
Its  moral  can  be  easily  drawn,  and  it  can  also  be 
easily  applied  to  other  conspiracies  which  proved 
equally  abortive,  since  the  reason  for  their  respective 
failures  may  be  traced  to  the  same  simple  cause. 

This,  in  ten  words,  is  the  disinclination  of  the 
originator  to  take  all  the  risk.  The  successful  regicide 
takes  his  own  life  in  his  own  hand,  and  has  no  need 
to  share  his  views  with  other  people.  His  unsuccess- 
ful brother  is,  fortunately  for  Kings,  Emperors,  and 
Presidents,  less  selfish.  He  disdains  keeping  all  the 
glory  to  himself — or  the  danger.  His  first  impulse 
on  conceiving  a  scheme  of  the  kind  is  to  get  his 
friends  and  acquaintances  to  join  it.  His  excuse  is 
that  his  object  will  be  more  easily  attained  by  linking 
all  (for  his  country's  good,  of  course)  in  the  bonds  of 
a  common  danger.  But  the  real  motive  which  under- 
lies the  move,  and  which  is  probably  concealed  from 
the  plotter  by  that  never-ceasing  action  of  self-decep- 
tion which  so  confounds  human  nature,  is  to  make 


282  MOATED  HOUSES 

his  own  escape  more  probable  in  the  event  of  dis- 
covery. If  hounds  or  pursuivants  are  to  be  set 
loose,  there  is  more  chance  for  one  hare  if  other  hares 
are  set  on  foot :  and  more  chance  for  one  conspirator 
if  seven  or  eight  other  conspirators  are  riding  for 
dear  life  into  different  parts  of  the  country.  The  one 
conspirator  mentioned  is  of  course  the  originator  him- 
self. The  application  of  this  axiom  to  practical 
events  will  account  for  the  failure  of  the  Rye  House 
Plot  as  well  as  for  most  others  in  history.  When 
Rumbold  saw  opportunity  beckoning  him  through  the 
windows  of  the  Rye  House,  he  had  the  manipulation 
of  the  plot  in  his  own  hand.  So  close  did  his  victim 
pass  to  this  man's  loopholed  garden  wall  that  he 
could  have  shot  him  at  sight,  if  he  had  been  ready  to 
risk  the  inevitable  consequences.  But  what  Rum- 
bold  was  not  prepared  to  take  in  his  own  hand  was 
his  own  life.  The  two  Republican  officers  had  to  be 
called  in  to  share  the  glory  or  the  peril  which  might 
ensue.  If  one  conspirator  would  have  been  enough, 
three  would  have  been  ample.  But  the  two  new  re- 
cruits also  saw  safety  in  the  increasing  of  responsi- 
bilities. If  accidents  happened,  there  would  be  more 
chance  for  them  too  if  thirty-eight  other  comrades 
were  flying  in  different  directions.  Hence  the  en- 
rolment of  the  little-needed  forty.  That  unnecessary 
enrolment  turned  a  promising  plot  into  a  failure.  It 
is  ever  thus,  fortunately,  with  conspirators  from  their 
childhood's  unhappy  hour. 

It  would  be  ungracious  to  take  leave  of  the  Rye 
House  without  acknowledging  the  debt  due  to  a 
proprietor  who  has  had  the  penetration  to  make  a 


THE  RYE  HOUSE  283 

pleasure  haunt  more  profitable  by  associating  it  with 
an  event  of  history  ;  and  who,  disdaining  the  vulgar 
advertisement  of  the  hoardings,  has  got  a  double 
patronage  for  his  establishment,  by  associating 
dancing  saloons  and  merry-go-rounds  with  the 
Memories  of  the  Past.  To  the  attractions  mentioned 
must  be  added  (during  the  summer  months)  the 
solace  to  be  got  by  sun-baked  Londoners  from  the 
smooth  expanses  of  well-kept  lawns,  and  from  flower- 
beds filled  with  quite  a  profusion  of  really  beautiful 
.^flowers.  But  even  these  are  not  the  limits  set  to  an 
ingenuity  which  in  an  untiring  search  for  fresh  joys 
has  made  a  final  dive  and  discovered  Dungeons. 
Most  moated  houses  relied  on  their  moat  for  the 
purpose  of  withdrawing  undesirable  people  from 
active  participation  in  current  events.  Under  what 
is  left  of  the  Rye  House  other  forms  of  mediaeval 
removal  are  in  startling  evidence.  Their  origin 
may  be  doubtful,  but  nervous  people  had  better 
view  them  after  lunch. 


XX 
BIRTSMORTON 

THE  great  dining-parlour  of  this  fine  Worcester- 
shire moated  house  tells  the  story  of  the  place 
clearly  to  all  who  have  a  taste  for  Heraldry. 
The  walls  of  this  room,  richly  wainscoted  with  carved 
oak,  speak  of  the  wealth  and  comfort  of  past  pro- 
prietors ;  of  their  hospitable  habits ;  of  their  custom, 
always  of  an  afternoon,  of  taking  their  wine  in 
surroundings  worthy  of  its  fine  flavour.  To  add 
dignity  to  these  symposiums,  an  heraldic  chimney- 
piece  displays  the  architecture  of  the  fourteenth 
century  and  the  arms  of  the  original  founders.  The 
walls  shine  with  the  emblazoned  shields  of  the 
numerous  families  allied  to  them.  The  room  is 
indeed  a  sort  of  Domestic  Heralds'  College  set  in  the 
heart  of  this  old  moated  house  where  Kings,  Esquires 
of  the  body,  Deputies  of  Calais,  and  Governors  of 
New  York  have  lived  and  loved  and  made  merry, 
but  whose  once  noble  and  hospitable  uses  have 
fallen  into  adversity.  The  great  hall  is  now  used 
as  a  farm  kitchen.  The  noble  banqueting  room  of 
50  feet  long  by  24  feet  wide  is  now  devoted  to  the 
making  of  cheeses.  Birtsmorton  is  a  great  house 

fallen  from  its  high  estate. 

-284 


• 


BIRTSMORTON     COURT 


BIRTSMORTON  285 

The  entrance  to  this  home  of  past  splendour 
faded,  and  of  noble  and  chivalric  owners  long  since 
dead  and  gone,  is  over  a  moat  which  is  one  of  the 
widest  in  the  country,  and  through  a  lofty  stone  gate- 
way with  embattled  walls.  The  lofty  ornamented 
chimneys  are  an  especially  picturesque  feature  of  this 
timbered  house,  which  must  have  been  built  before 
Arthur  Tudor  married  Catharine  of  Aragon.  Its 
open  court  is  guarded  by  a  relic  of  those  days 
departed,  in  the  form  of  a  great  oaken  door,  shattered 
it  is  true  by  the  assaults  of  time  and  the  slings  and 
arrows  of  outrageous  fortune,  but  still  showing  in  its 
nail-studded  strength  indelible  traces  of  its  being  the 
original  one.  Other  proofs  of  a  long  and  changeful 
past  are  to  be  seen  everywhere  in  the  building. 
The  great  room  once  used  for  banquets,  and  in  which 
cheeses  are  now  made  with  scrupulous  cleanliness 
and  dispatch,  tells,  in  its  chimney,  richly  ornamented 
in  stucco,  the  certain  story  of  royal  favour.  The 
Tudor  rose  and  the  fleur-de-lis  are  seen  in  com- 
partments. 

In  the  days  when  the  Letters  of  Junius  were  still 
stirring  England  to  the  heart,  and  John  Wilkes  was 
fighting  the  battle  of  reporters  in  the  Commons,  and 
sneaking  down  Fleet  Street  alleys  to  avoid  the  tip- 
staffs,— in  this  very  year  in  which  our  great  modern 
newspapers,  the  Morning  Chronicle,  the  Morning 
Post,  the  Morning  Herald,  and  the  Times,  came  into 
being, — the  death  of  Lady  Judith  Coote,  only 
daughter  of  Richard  second  Earl  of  Bellamont,  put 
an  end  to  an  unbroken  ownership  which  had  ruled 
at  Birtsmorton  Court  since  the  days  of  Henry  the 


286  MOATED  HOUSES 

Sixth.  Cornwall  gave  Birtsmorton  its  first  owner, 
in  the  person  of  John  Nanfan,  or  Nanphant,  who 
came  from  Tresize  in  that  county  of  legend  and 
tin  mines  and  wrestlers,  and  probably  rebuilt  the  house. 
Cornishman  as  he  was,  John  Nanfan  was  something 
of  a  wrestler  himself.  He  at  all  events  made  himself 
busy  in  other  matters  than  building.  Nor  did  his 
love  for  his  new  and  beautiful  Worcestershire  home 
prevent  him  from  making  his  strenuous  presence 
felt, — not  only  in  his  own  native  county,  but  in  any 
other  part  of  the  civilized  globe,  where  the  King  was 
to  be  served,  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  proper  profit. 
This  last  consideration  was  a  vital  one,  and  rose  even 
superior  to  loyalty.  For  the  Nanfans  were  through- 
out their  whole  history  consistent  amassers  not  to 
say  grabbers  of  wealth,  and  it  seems  an  irony  of 
circumstance  that  a  house  which  once  sheltered  a 
race  so  grasping,  eminent,  and  rich,  should  have 
come  to  be  put  at  last  to  such  homely  purposes.  Still 
there  is  a  profit  attached  to  cheese-making,  as  the 
Nanfans  would  soon  have  found  out,  so  Birtsmorton 
is  perhaps  not  altogether  unfittingly  tenanted.  Its 
present  owners  are  as  busy  turning  over  money  made 
out  of  cheeses,  as  their  predecessors  the  Nanfans 
were  busy  with  county  matters  out  of  which  money 
could  be  made.  John,  the  probable  builder  of 
Birtsmorton,  was  twice  Sheriff  of  Cornwall,  and  used 
the  experience  gained  from  an  officially  pushing 
position,  to  push  himself  forward  for  the  Governor- 
ship of  Jersey  and  Guernsey.  He  got  the  post — and 
also  its  Collectorship  of  Customs.  Money  and  John 
Nanfan  were  never  far  apart. 


BIRTSMORTON  287 

His   son    Richard   followed   sedulously    in    those 
determined    and    accumulating    footsteps,    and    was 
indeed  so  actively  engaged  in  gleaning  and  garner- 
ing in  other  places  that  he  could  not  have  been  in 
residence  at  the  family  seat  for   long   periods   at   a 
time.     The   year    1485    would,  however,  have  seen 
him  there  ;  for  in  this  first  year  of  Henry  the  Seventh, 
Richard    Nanfan    was    made    Esquire    of    the   new 
King's   body,   and   the   Tudor   rose   and   the   fleur- 
de-lis   on   the    banqueting-hall   chimney   are   said  to 
memorialize  a  royal  visit.     Royal  favour  at  all  events 
followed  hard  after  the  second  owner  of  Birtsmorton, 
and  with  no  unvarying  strides.      It  gave  him  frequent 
grants  of  stewardships  which   must  have  made   him 
a  very  rich  man,  and  it  impelled  him  presently,  with 
a  royal    and   gentle  push  on   no    resisting   shoulder, 
into  further  paths  of  ambition  and  pay.     Results  soon 
manifested   themselves  which   must   have  made   the 
Christmas  of  1488  at  Birtsmorton  a  merry  one.     For 
the  hospitality  of  the  host  would  have  been  heightened 
by  the  knowledge  that  four  days  before  he  had  been 
elected  for   a   mission    (diplomatic)    into    Spain   and 
Portugal,  with  the  promise  of  a  Knighthood  before 
setting  out.    This  favour  granted,  and  two  companions 
for  the  voyage  having  also  been  chosen  in  the 'persons 
of  a  Doctor  Savage  and  Roger  Macado  the  Norroy 
King-of-Arms,  the   party  left  Southampton  early   in 
1489,   in   a  boat    in    which   no  diplomatist  of  to-day 
would  dare  to  cross  the  English  Channel.     The  good 
fortune  of  Sir  Richard,  however,  favoured  him  even 
at  sea,  embarked  though  he  was  in  so  frail  a  craft. 
Perhaps  he  had  craft  enough  of  his  own,  and  it  served 


288  MOATED  HOUSES 

for  ballast.  He  at  all  events  had  a  fair  voyage,  and 
on  1 2th  March  an  interview  at  Medina  del  Campo 
linked  this  story  of  Birtsmorton  Court  and  its  owners 
with  the  history  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  Like 
everything  Richard  took  in  hand,  this  diplomatic 
meeting  was  a  success.  Perhaps  to  celebrate  its 
success,  the  diplomat  took  his  honours  and  his 
courage  in  both  hands,  and  came  home  in  another 
leviathan  of  the  deep,  laden  with  salt  this  time,  and 
weighing  20  tons ! 

Soon  afterwards  he  attained  to  Calais.  This  was 
a  coveted  post,  and,  as  such,  would  long  have  pre- 
sented itself  to  Richard's  mind's  eye.  Cavendish's 
account,  however,  of  what  he  was  doing  there  is 
rather  vague,  not  to  say  disquieting.  He  simply 
remarks  that  Sir  Richard  Nanfan  "had  a  great  room 
in  the  place."  Unkindly  people  or  candid  friends 
suggested  that  this  cryptic  utterance  was  intended 
to  convey  the  fact  that  he  was  only  Treasurer  of 
the  place  ;  and  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Sir 
Richard's  own  proclivities,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
father's  activity  at  the  Jersey  Customs,  at  first  sight 
favour  the  possibility.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that 
he  was  Deputy  as  well,  and  letters  of  Henry  the 
Seventh  show  that  as  late  as  1500  Richard  was  still 
carrying  out  his  responsible  duties  at  the  only  French 
seaport  which  remained  in  English  hands,  except  one 
small  one  which  need  not  be  taken  into  historic 
account.  At  this  period  our  hero  is  caught  at  his 
official  labours  in  a  very  characteristic  attitude.  He 
had  been  accused  of  being  Treasurer,  and  not  Deputy. 
And  now,  as  Deputy,  we  have  a  singular  picture  of 


t,  H  riwi  ss?ipfefc^iL» 


BIRTSMORTON   COURT 


BIRTSMORTON  291 

him  listening  at  the  Treasurer's  door  to  catch  that 
worthy  out  in  a  treasonable  conversation.  The 
worthy's  name  was  Sir  Hugh  Con  way,  and  John 
Flamank  sent  over  an  account  to  England  of  what 

o 

Sir  Richard  had  heard  him  saying.  It  was  not  a 
very  savoury  business,  but  the  matter  was  rounded 
by  a  rope  and  a  cauldron  of  boiling  pitch,  and  through 
the  smoke  pouring  from  the  latter  Sir  Richard  is 
seen  peering  with  dubious  air.  He  had  the  price 
of  that  catastrophe,  we  may  be  sure,  in  his  pocket ! 

His  return  to  Birtsmorton  almost  immediately 
followed  this  diplomatic  exercise  of  his  ears.  He 
came  back  to  the  qld  Worcestershire,,,house  accom- 
panied by  honours,  dignities,  and  much  public  pelf. 
It  is  likely,  having  strong  religious  views,  as  well  as 
firm  financial  ones,  that  he  also  came  back  to  it 
accompanied  by  his  chaplain.  Such  an  ecclesiastical 
escort  would  give  Wolsey  as  a  visitor  to  Birtsmorton, 
if  he  did  not  in  fact  live  there  through  some  of  the 
remaining  five  years  of  Sir  Richard's  life.  He  had 
been  his  chaplain  through  the  greater  part  of  the 
Calais  adventures,  and  very  likely  assisted  at  the 
listening  at  the  door  episode.  Sir  Richard,  with  his 
usual  penetration,  saw  signs  of  budding  greatness  in 
the  Ipswich  tradesman's  son  who  was  to  be  in  future 
Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England  and  Archbishop 
of  York.  He  gave  an  opening  for  his  genius  by 
introducing  him  to  the  King.  He  made  him  one  of 
his  executors.  Then  having  no  further  diplomatic 
triumphs  to  gain  in  this  world,  he  died  in  January 
1506.  He  left  a  great  deal  of  money,  a  wife  who  died 
four  years  after  him  childless,  and  an  illegitimate  son. 


292  MOATED  HOUSES 

The  history  of  this  son,  whose  name  was  John, 
is  properly  surrounded  with  mystery.  Two  things, 
however,  are  certain  about  him.  He  accompanied 
his  father  on  the  diplomatic  mission  to  Spain,  and  on 
his  death  succeeded  to  the  Worcestershire  estates. 
They  had  by  this  time  become  very  large,  and  the 
various  owners  continued  to  show  the  same  strenuous 
interest  in  county  affairs.  That  the  family  push  of 
a  certain  Bridges  Nanfan  landed  him  in  Parliament  as 
Member  for  the  City  of  Worcester  is  not  so  important 
a  matter  as  the  fact  that  he  left  behind  him  a 
|  daughter  \ who  was  also  an  heiress^ Her  name  was 
rj  Catharine,  and  'she  grew  up  to  girlhood  guarded  by 
the  Birtsmorton  moat,  which  must  often  have  reflected 
her  pretty  face,  and  her  dangerously  inviting  fortune 
in  the  spendthrift  days  of  the  Merry  Monarch. 
Many  adventurous  blades  must  have  attempted  beauty 
tAAAX^JO  richly  dowered.  Her  father's  Parliamentary  duties 

U^qr^frust  have  brought  her  with  him  to  town  for  a  talk, 

& 

-  and  Whitehall  and  Paul's  Walk  must  have  sounded 
the  name  of  the  Worcestershire  heiress.  If  toasts 
told  anything,  London  intended  to  have  her.  Ireland, 
however,  eventually  snatched  the  tempting  matri- 
monial  morsel  from  the  metropolis's  open  jaws;  and 
in  the  stirring  year  when  Shaftesbury  lay  dying,  and 
conspirators  were  huddling  and  whispering  round  an 
old  fireplace  in  the  Rye  House,  Catharine  Nanfan 
threw  away  national  preferences,  and  gave  her  hand 
and  fortune,  and  the  halls  and  courts  and  clustering 
chimneys  of  Birtsmorton  with  them,  to  Coote  Richard, 
only  son  of  Richard  Coote,  Lord  Coloony  in  the 
peerage  of  Ireland. 


BIRTSMORTON  293 

An  increased  impetus  was  lent  to  the  already 
sufficiently  strenuous  character  of  the  Nanfans  by 
this  marriage,  which  added  a  noble  shield  to  the 
emblazoned  ones  already  hanging  in  the  Birtsmorton 
great  parlour.  With  all  the  impetuosity  of  his  race, 
Lord  Coloony  flung  himself  into  affairs.  Affairs  were 
lively  at  the  time  :  the  young  peer  did  not  detract 
from  their  tendency,  by  showing  from  the  first  pro- 
nounced Orange  views.  His  devotion  to  the  young 
cause  of  William  the  Third  was  indeed  shown  so 
vigorously  both  in  Parliament  and  in  the  campaign 
in  Ireland,  that  he  was  attainted  by  James  the 
Second's  Irish  Parliament  (then  sitting  where  many 
people  suppose  it  ought  to  be  sitting  now).  The 
gratitude  of  the  victorious  Dutchman,  however,  soon 
put  matters  right.  The  attainted  Lord  Coloony  was 
made  Treasurer  and  Receiver  to  Queen  Mary  (an 
exquisite  family  touch  seeming  to  show  that  even  if 
they  only  got  it  through  marriage,  the  Lords  of 
Birtsmorton  must  have  control  of  the  cash),  and  on  the 
2nd  of  November  of  the  same  year  he  was  created 
Earl  of  Bellamont  in  the  peerage  of  Ireland. 

But  this  newly  created  Irish  Earl's  devotion  to 
the  cause  of  William  is  not  the  most  striking  episode 
in  his  connection  with  Birtsmorton  Court.  This  will 
be  found  to  lie  in  an  appointment  carrying  with  it  what 
would  at  first  sight  seem  to  be  small  romantic  possi- 
bilities. Events,  however,  were  to  negative  this 
view.  For  Lord  Bellamont's  succession,  his  ap- 
pointment as  Governor  of  New  England,  carrying 
with  it  a  mission  expressly  directed  to  put  down 
piracy,  at  once  connects  this  old  Worcestershire 


294  MOATED  HOUSES 

manor  -  house,  its  clustered  chimneys,  dreaming 
moat,  grey  and  decorous  history,  with  no  less  a 
piratical  notoriety  than  the  famous  Captain  Kidd. 
On  this  quiet  scene  of  Lancastrian  Tudor  and 
Orange  diplomatic  triumphs  a  full-blooded  pirate 
appears.  Not  literally,  be  it  understood,  nor  is  it 
suggested.  It  cannot  unfortunately  be  suggested 
that  this  bold  and  buccaneering  presence  was  ever 
seen  even  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  house  in  the 
flesh.  He  may  well  be  supposed  to  haunt  it,  however, 
by  believers  in  ghosts,  since  his  precipitate  departure 
from  this  vale  of  tears  (which  took  place  on  23rd  May 
1701,  at  no  less  a  classic  spot  than  Execution  Dock) 
was  directly  due  to  the  contemporary  owner  of  Birts- 
morton's  diplomatic  activity.  Curiously  enough, 
this  rascal  owed  his  sudden  rise  to  Lord  Bellamont, 
equally  as  he  owed  to  him  his  disagreeably  precipi- 
tate fall.  And  between  the  years  1695  and  1700  his 
name  and  doings  must  have  contaminated  many  a 
letter  which  came  to  the  Worcestershire  Birtsmorton 
moated  house  from  that  New  England,  as  it  was 
then  called,  where  the  absent  head  of  the  family  had 
taken  up  his  appointment  as  Governor.  These  letters 
concerning  Kidd  and  his  doings  must  have  made 
stirring  reading  for  the  Birtsmorton  folk.  Visions  of 
the  Jolly  Roger,  merchantmen  scuttled  in  far-off  seas, 
passengers  and  crew  walking  the  plank,  decks 
aswim  with  blood,  to  say  nothing  of  immense 
treasure  piratically  borne  off  from  those  horrid  scenes  of 
loot  and  murder,  must  have  passed  before  the  amazed 
eyes  of  the  honest  stay  -  at  -  home  Worcestershire 
folk  like  a  succession  of  tremendous  marine  night- 


BIRTSMORTON  295 

mares.  The  twisted  chimneys  of  the  old  house  itself 
must  almost  have  inclined  themselves  to  listen  to  the 
tales,  and  the  broad  moat  for  a  moment  or  two 
forgotten  to  murmur.  The  inhabitants  of  the  house 
at  all  events  had  cause  to  read  these  tidings  about 
Kidd  with  an  amazement  in  which  perturbation  had 
a  share.  For  these  murderous  commercial  successes 
of  the  buccaneer  were  entirely  due  to  the  absent 
Governor  of  New  England's  lack  of  foresight.  With 
each  triumph  of  the  pirate  they  expected  to  hear  of 
Earl  Bellamont's  recall.  Nor  is  it  certain  that  such 
a  disgrace  would  not  have  fallen  on  the  house,  if  the 
noble  proprietor  had  not  been  careful  enough  to 
connect  five  of  the  greatest  official  names  with  his 
own  (and  Kidd's)  in  an  extraordinary  scheme. 

The  facts  of  the  case  are  so  simple  that  he  who 
runs  may  read  them,  and  he  will  also  smile.  Earl 
Bellamont,  especially  sent  out  to  New  England  to 
suppress  piracy,  finds  piracy  more  rampant  even  than 
was  supposed.  He  advertises  for  a  proper  man  to 
put  down  the  outrage  on  civilization.  A  man  of 
good  repute  in  the  Colony,  named  Robert  Livingstone, 
answers  the  advertisement  for  putting  down  piracy, 
by  appearing  in  the  Governor's  presence  leading  a 
disguised  pirate  by  the  hand.  He  introduces  him  as 
Captain  Kidd  and  as  a  man  fit  for  the  work.  Kidd 
produced  some  sort  of  references,  but  Bellamont 
found  something  in  this  new-found  agent  for  re- 
storing the  peace  of  the  seas  which  made  him  hesitate 
to  give  him  the  command  of  a  King's  ship — it  was 
probably  something  peculiarly  villainous  in  the 
aspirant's  eye.  A  King's  ship  not  being  found  a 


296  MOATED  HOUSES 

suitable  stage  for  the  display  of  Captain  Kidd's 
capacities  as  a  seaman,  a  novel  and  most  extra- 
ordinary expedient  was  hit  upon  by  Earl  Bellamont. 
He  decided  on.  putting  down  piracy  by  a  piece  of 
company  promoting,  and  went  to  England  with  the 
disguised  pirate.  Birtsmorton  would  now  have  seen 
its  noble  owner  again ;  its  silent  walls  may  have 
listened  to  preliminary  or  final  fiscal  details  :  and  a 
subscription  list  in  due  course  appeared  in  the  form  of 
a  State  document  which  showed  the  Governor  of  New 
England,  the  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  a  Secretary  of  State,  and  a  Lord  Justice, 
writing  their  names  under  that  of  a  disguised  pirate 
for  the  purpose  of  building  a  privateer  which  he 
himself  was  to  command.  The  money  was  found 
so  quickly  that  the  Adventure,  Captain  Kidd  com- 
manding, sailed  for  New  York  in  the  following  year. 
Bellamont  may  have  gone  in  her  as  a  passenger,  or 
returned  by  a  later  boat  to  official  duties — to  his 
singular  conception  of  official  duties. 

Kidd  at  once  began  his.  After  raising  his 
complement  of  hands  to  150,.  and  secretly  stowing 
on  board  a  novel  kind  of  royal  ensign  in  the  form  of 
a  black  flag  adorned  with  a  skull  and  cross-bones, 
he  sailed  for  Madagascar,  as  the  chief  centre  of 
piratical  misdoings,  and  for  two  years  his  noble 
band  of  fellow-subscribers  heard  nothing  of  him  at 
all.  Then  astonishing  rumours  began  to  filter 
through  to  London.  Dispatch  followed  dispatch, 
till  discomforting  rumour  grew  into  astounding 
certainty,  and  the  subscribers  for  a  new  plan  for 
putting  down  piracy  on  the  high  seas  learnt  that 


BIRTSMORTON   COURT 


BIRTSMORTON  299 

their  acting  agent  abroad,  instead  of  destroying 
pirates,  was  a  pirate  of  the  deepest  possible  dye 
himself.  The  consternation  of  a  syndicate  who 
were  all  members  of  the  Government  at  this  news 
may  be  better  imagined  than  described.  The  vener- 
able walls  of  Birtsmorton  Court  must  almost  have 
fallen  into  a  moat  equally  disturbed.  Their  absent 
owner,  seeing  that  he  had  put  his  eggs  into  the 
wrong  basket,  now  hastily  abandoned  company 
promoting  for  the  safety  of  the  seas,  and  sent  pro- 
clamations post-haste  all  over  the  world  announcing 
that  his  late  fellow-promoter  was  a  pirate  pure 
and  simple,  and  not  a  city  financier.  As  the 
gentleman  referred  to  was  at  the  moment  at  some 
place  on  the  high  seas  (longitude  not  known),  setting 
fire  to  passing  ships,  and  making  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  on  board  them  walk  the  plank,  for  the 
purpose  of  booty,  what  good  would  come  of  the 
proclamation  did  not  patently  appear. 

Strangely  enough,  the  good  came  in  a  form  least 
expected,  in  the  person  of  the  much-wanted  Kidd 
himself,  and  in  a  letter  written  by  him  to  Lord 
Bellamont  saying  that  he  was  an  innocent  man.  He 
received  an  answer  that  if  this  was  the  case  he  had 
better  come  to  Boston  and  pay  a  call.  Impudence 
or  innocence  prompted  him  to  take  advantage 
of  this  courtesy  on  the  ist  of  June  1699.  Irons 
were  clapped  upon  him  at  once.  But  his  native 
effrontery  did  not  desert  him  even  in  this  new  form 
of  a  meeting  of  directors.  He  had  his  tale  to  tell, 
and  he  told  it  with  an  air  of  outraged  innocence  that 
would  have  done  credit  to  one  of  our  modern  ab- 


300  MOATED  HOUSES 

sconding  financiers.  He  said  that  no  act  of  piracy 
had  been  committed,  but  that  he  had  been  over- 
powered by  a  mutinous  crew,  though  he  had  thrown 
a  leaden  implement  of  commerce  at  one  of  the 
mutineers,  and  fatally  wounded  him  in  the  head. 
Asked  where  the  capital  of  the  company  was  (in  the 
form  of  the  good  ship  Adventure),  he  said  that 
she  had  become  unseaworthy  and  had  been  de- 
stroyed ;  and  that  the  few  men  who  had  remained 
loyal  were  on  their  way  home  in  a  ship  named  the 
Quedo  Merchant,  a  richly  laden  ship  of  400  tons, 
which  had  been  captured  under  French  colours  when 
touching  at  Hispaniola.  He  added  that  it  was  there 
that  he  had  heard  that  he  had  been  proclaimed  a 
pirate,  and  had  indignantly  come  on  to  Boston  by  a 
small  ship.  Having  heard  something  about  a  cargo 
of  ,£70,000  being  on  board  the  Quedo  Merchant,  Lord 
Bellamont  was  not  unnaturally  anxious  to  know 
where  that  good  ship  was.  But  Kidd  knew  nothing 
whatever  about  this.  In  the  words  of  our  more 
modern  financier,  he  said,  "  No,  you  don't !  "  and  the 
Quedo  Merchant  was  never  heard  of  afterwards. 

Half  a  year  having  been  spent  in  a  fruitless 
search  for  these  missing  assets  (some  small  part  of 
the  treasure  known  to  have  been  buried  in  Gardiner's 
Island  was  never  recovered,  nor  that  larger  portion 
believed  by  present-day  experts  to  have  been  buried 
somewhere  else),  Captain  Kidd  was  sent  in  irons  to 
London  to  take  his  trial.  But  here  this  skilful 
mariner  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  was  hopelessly 
at  sea.  He  attempted  through  friends  to  prove  in 
the  House  of  Commons  that  his  fellow-directors  were 


BIRTSMORTON  301 

"in  the  know,"  especially  the  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England  ("Forgive  me,  shade  of  Lord  Somers"). 
At  the  Old  Bailey  he  said  that  he  had  sailed  under 
sealed  orders  which  Lord  Bellamont  and  the  Lords 
of  the  Admiralty  had,  after  prevailing  upon  him  to  let 
them  have  a  look  at  them,  snatched  out  of  his  hand. 
On  23rd  May  1701  he  was  hung  at  Execution  Dock 
with  several  of  his  companions.  Two  months  before, 
Lord  Bellamont  had  died  at  New  York,  and  had 
been  honoured  with  a  public  funeral. 

His  widowed  Countess,  the  beautiful  heiress  of 
Charles  the  Second's  days,  continued  to  live  at 
Birtsmorton  in  company  with  a  sorrow  which  did 
not  long  prove  unconsolable.  It  would  seem  that 
either  grief  became  her,  or  that  her  large  fortune 
looked  more  tempting  in  its  widowed  weeds ;  for 
she  twice  afterwards  entered  into  the  bonds  of  holy 
matrimony,  and  showed  both  to  Admiral  Caldwell 
and  Edmund  Pytts,  Esquire,  that  mourning  can  be 
made  seductive,  by  marrying  them  both  (one  after 
the  other).  This  last  tempting  of  fortune  gave 
Birtsmorton  Court  its  first  Lord  Mayor  of  London. 
As  Sir  Edmund  Pytts  rode  through  the  bawling 
streets  in  his  gilded  coach  the  quarrel  with  America 
was  beginning,  and  the  Prime  Minister  was  losing  a 
Colony  by  reading  its  dispatches.  The  Colonists 
liked  to  govern  themselves,  and  no  Minister  had  paid 
the  least  attention  to  anything  they  put  in  writing  till 
Grenville  took  the  reins  of  office.  His  excessive 
studiousness  overturned  the  coach.  With  civic 
dignities  now  thick  upon  it,  the  long  story  of  Birts- 
morton and  the  worthies  who  lived  there  draws  to  its 


302  MOATED  HOUSES 

close.  Ambassador !  Governor  of  Calais !  Esquire  of 
the  Body  to  a  Tudor  King !  future  Lord  Chancellor 
of  England !  Archbishop  of  York !  England's  Repre- 
sentative in  the  England  across  the  Sea !  Lord  Mayor 
of  London !  here  are  a  list  of  titles  and  honours, 
whose  holders  have  been  shown  crossing  and  recross- 
ing  the  bridge  over  the  Birtsmorton  moat,  and  whose 
arms  emblazoned  in  the  great  parlour  bear  witness  to 
the  pomp  and  splendour  of  a  courtly  past.  But  a 
plain  and  simple  citizen  who  did  more  service  to  the 
State  than  all  the  inmates  and  possessors  of  the  old 
house  already  mentioned  has  yet  to  be  added  to  the 
list  of  its  worthies.  In  1771  the  death  of  Lady  Julia 
Cooke,  only  daughter  of  Richard  second  Earl  of 
Bellamont,  put  an  end  to  an  unbroken  succession,  and 
the  property  passed  out  of  the  family.  But  the  year 
before  a  boy  had  been  born  at  Birtsmorton  (during 
a  temporary  tenancy  of  the  place  by  his  father),  who, 
when  he  grew  to  manhood,  was  destined  to  write  his 
name  larger  on  his  country's  history  than  all  those 
stately  holders  of  the  past  had  done  by  shields  shining 
with  emblazonments.  "  The  Reciprocity  of  Duties 
Bill,"  which  made  the  Port  of  London  the  clearing- 
house of  the  world,  was  a  richer  gift  to  England  than 
the  first  Nanfan's  diplomatic  journey  to  Spain,  or  his 
son's  pocketings  and  eavesdroppings  at  Calais.  The 
Sliding  Scale  duties  on  Corn  was  the  first  step  towards 
that  Free  Trade  which  now  appears  to  be  not,  as  it 
was  always  supposed  to  be,  an  unmixed  blessing,  but 
which  may  yet  be  set  in  a  higher  grade  of  achieve- 
ment for  a  country's  good  than  Bellamont's  martial 
caperings  in  Ireland  for  William  of  Orange,  or  his 


BIRTSMORTON  303 

final  capture  of  a  successful  pirate  whom  he  had 
himself  fatuously  enlisted  in  the  country's  service. 
Finally,  the  patient  and  unceasing  forwarding  of  the 
slow  birth  of  Machinery  and  Steam  is  a  work  which 
will  outlive  heraldic  chimneys  and  the  arms  of 
Birtsmorton's  first  founders. 

Huskisson  was  born  in  this  house. 


XXI 

COMPTON  WINYATES 

THERE  is  extant  a  long  and  formal  letter  of 
Lord  Burleigh's  written  in  those  Elizabethan 
days  when  conspirators  were  supposed  to  be 
busy  and  seminary  priests  were,  according  to  their 
own  view,  trying  to  teach  England  how  to  behave, 
and  according  to  the  view  of  the  authorities,  trying  to 
help  the  conspirators,  bearing  the  singular  heading  of 
"  Compton  in  the  Hole."  This  letter  was  written 
from  Compton  Winyates.  The  address  perfectly 
describes  the  site  of  a  moated  house  which  is  the 
pride  of  Warwickshire,  and  which  can  be  almost 
stumbled  upon  before  it  is  seen.  In  so  deep  a  seclu- 
sion indeed  does  Compton  Winyates  lie,  that  Mr. 
Howitt,  the  well-known  antiquary,  in  one  of  his 
Visits  to  Remarkable  Places,  had  great  difficulty  in 
finding  this  remarkable  place  at  all.  No  matter  from 
which  quarter  approached,  the  house,  surrounded  by  its 
woods  and  ponds,  remains  to  the  last  moment  hidden 
The  genial  and  entertaining  author  above  named, 
who  after  long  ramblings  over  English  counties 
was  not  averse  to  sitting  down  before  a  punch- 
bowl, approached  the  place  from  Edgehill,  which 

lies  four  miles  off.     And  the  scene  of  the  first  battle 

304 


COMPTON  WINYATES  305 

of  the  Great  Civil  War  is  a  particularly  appropriate 
point  of  departure  for  a  visit  to  a  house  so  more  than 
ordinarily  rich  in  Cavalier  memories.  Other  memories, 
too,  than  those  of  Charles  the  First's  time  are  stirred 
by  this  route,  though  like  all  good  ways  it  is  a  difficult 
one  to  follow,  and  the  directions  of  the  local  inhabit- 
ants are  decidedly  bad.  No  sooner  has  Edge  Hill, 
with  its  associations  of  undecided  battle,  been  left 
behind,  than  another  warlike  memorial  comes  into 
view.  The  figure  of  a  red  horse  roughly  cut  in  the 
Hurf  of  a  hillside  is  a  modern  copy  of  an  older  model, 
but  it  serves  to  remind  wayfarers  of  the  battle  of 
Towton.  Pictures  at  once  present  themselves  to  the 
pedestrian  of  that  desperate  fray.  Neville  is  seen 
swearing  on  his  sword  cross  to  conquer  or  die  ;  killing 
his  war-horse  before  the  eyes  of  his  foot-soldiers,  who 
had  begun  to  give  way  before  the  Lancastrian  attack, 
in  order  to  unite  them  with  him  in  an  equal  danger, 
and  to  inspire  them  with  some  needful  portion  of 
his  own  desperate  valour.  Towton  was  not  one 
of  those  "  bloodiest  battles  in  history  "  that  we  heard  of 
during  the  Boer  War.  But  it  was  one  of  the  bloodiest 
battles  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  A  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  men  fought  hand  to  hand  for  six 
hours,  for  nothing  in  particular,  and  in  a  snowstorm, 
on  that  tremendous  day.  When  the  day  went  down 
on  that  scene  of  carnage,  Edward's  herald,  in  a 
very  indifferent  light  for  making  a  list  of  killed 
and  wounded,  counted  twenty  thousand  Lancastrian 
corpses  in  the  fields  about  Tadcaster.  Here  we  have 
the  horrors  of  war  exposed  to  us  with  a  vengeance ! 
A  more  sociable  memory  is  recalled  by  the  sight  of  a 

20 


306  MOATED  HOUSES 

large  house  perched  on  the  top  of  a  neighbouring 
hill.  This  house  was  once  a  celebrated  inn,  though 
its  days  are  long  since  gone.  But  its  picturesque 
name,  "  Sun  Rising,"  was  as  familiar  to  our  forefathers 
as  household  words  in  the  meridian  of  "  Coaching- 

o 

Days  and  Ways."  The  time  seems  now  to  have 
come  to  leave  off  thinking  about  the  desperate  hand- 
to-hand  battles  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  the 
almost  equally  desperate  journeys  of  crack  coaches 
timed  over  great  lengths  of  road  at  twelve  and  a 
half  miles  an  hour,  including  stoppages,  and  to  try 
to  find  the  way  to  avoid  digressions,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  way  to  Compton  Winyates.  Mr.  Howitt,  on 
his  visit,  was  told  to  take  a  footpath  leading  over  a 
little  hill,  and  to  keep  a  mill  standing  on  the  top  of  it  to 
his  right.  But  the  footpath  faded  to  nothing,  and  the 
traveller  was  making  for  the  mill  to  get  some  further 
advice,  when  he  saw  a  stile  on  his  left  hand ;  he  got 
over  it,  and  his  genial  face  was  at  once  suffused  with 
a  lively  satisfaction.  There  lay  Compton  Winyates 
at  his  feet,  hiding  its  mysteries  in  a  lonely  valley. 

A  feeling  came  over  Mr.  Howitt  at  this  welcome 
sight  which  he  modestly  says  he  does  not  know  how 
to  describe,  but  which  he  presently  proceeds  to 
describe  very  well ;  and  his  sympathetic  account  of 
his  first  view  of  this  Warwickshire  moated  house 
should  be  read  by  all  those  interested  in  these  homes 
of  a  vanished  world.  Meanwhile  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  (exaggeration  carefully  barred)  that  the  sight 
of  Compton  Winyates  makes  the  traveller  stand  still. 
He  seems  to  have  come  suddenly  upon  an  enchanted 
place,  to  have  got  a  peep  at  the  Castle  of  Avalon. 


COMPTON  WINYATES  309 

If  things  imaginative  held  their  proper  sway  in  this 
world  devoted  to  materialism,  political  Mumbo  Jumbos, 
and  motor  cars,  King  Arthur,  Ogeir,  and  Palladin 
should  be  housed  with  Morgana  in  this  moated  house, 
lying  there  in  the  solitary  valley,  and  wrapped  in  the 
mysterious  stillness  of  the  world  of  dreams.  Faint 
murmurs  of  the  Infinitely  Distant  Land  come  borne 
upon  the  breeze.  Charmed  magic  casements  should 
be  seen  opening  in  this  home  of  a  fairy  world 
forlorn. 

Though,  however,  the  charmed  casements  of  the 
poet  who  strangely  enough  thought  that  his  name 
which  will  never  die  was  "writ  in  water,"  no  longer 
form  a  part  of  Compton  Winyates'  treasures,  it  has 
its  full  share  of  equipments  hardly  less  mysterious, 
which  charge  it  from  floor  to  ceiling  with  an  air  of 
secrecy  peculiarly  its  own.  Such  a  succession  of 
sliding  panels,  secret  hiding-places,  masked  entrances, 
delusive  stairways  designed  deliberately  for  the 
purpose  of  deluding,  now  leading  the  intruder  up  one 
flight  of  stairs,  now  down  two,  only  to  lead  him  up 
three  again,  and  land  him  finally  in  some  part  of  the 
building  to  which  he  had  not  the  faintest  desire  to 
penetrate,  are  not  to  be  found  within  the  four  walls  of 
any  other  moated  house  in  England.  Since  the  ruthless 
hand  of  a  blind  iconoclasm  pulled  down  Henlip  Hall 
for  the  edification  of  unthinking  posterity  (after  first 
turning  it  into  a  girls'  school),  there  is  no  house 
to  be  seen  which  speaks  so  eloquently  as  Compton 
Winyates  does,  of  the  constantly  surrounding  perils 
from  which  our  naive  forefathers  had  to  protect 
themselves  in  times  of  civil  war,  religious  persecution, 


310  MOATED  HOUSES 

and  internecine  strife.  The  by-ways,  the  secret  stairs, 
and  the  underground  passages  of  Compton  Winyates 
are  eloquent  explanation  of  the  necessity  of  the 
moated  house  when  times  were  troublous,  and  a 
trembling  Sheriff's  tremulous  "Posse  Comitatus " 
inadequately  represented  the  police.  But  a  moat  of 
brimming  water  drawn  round  the  family  seat  was  not 
safeguard  enough  when  every  man's  hand  was  against 
his  neighbour's ;  when  armed  and  ruffianly  camp- 
followers  hung  about  the  heels  of  a  long-drawn-out 
civil  war ;  and  the  precious  heritage  of  our  civil 
and  religious  liberty  was  being  brought  to  a  slow 
and  painful  birth.  The  moat,  as  a  first  line  of 
defence,  was  well  enough  in  its  way.  But  preparation 
had  to  be  made  for  the  reception  of  unwelcome 
visitors  whose  audacity  or  cunning  had  enabled  them 
to  cross  it.  The  interior  of  these  houses  had  also  to 
be  prepared  against  sudden  or  insidious  assault. 
Means  of  protection  or  escape  were  accordingly 
provided  against  an  enemy,  whether  marauder, 
pursuivant,  priest-hunter,  or  near  neighbour  on 
murder  bent,  even  when  he  was  already  in  the  citadel. 
Hence  the  carefully  designed  succession  of  builders' 
puzzles  to  be  seen  at  Compton  Winyates  and  else- 
where, but  at  Compton  Winyates  in  an  ordered  and 
subtle  profusion.  Totally  unexpected  assaults  may 
have  been  made  on  undesirable  visitors  from  many 
of  these  masked  doorways.  Pursuivants  have  often 
got  tired  of  running  up  and  down  false  stairs  leading 
to  nowhere  after  their  elusive  prey.  An  oubliette 
just  outside  a  drawing-room  door  has  opened  and 
shut  before  now,  without  making  any  further  comment 


COMPTON  WINYATES  311 

on   the   matter.     The   moat   at    Compton    Winyates 
may  hold  dark  secrets. 

Strangely  enough  (for  a  house  whose  interior  is 
so  strongly  suggestive  of  treasons,  stratagems,  and 
spoils),  a  two  days'  siege  in  the  Civil  War  is  the  only 
violent  event  recorded  in  its  story.  The  usual 
Conspirators'  Room  is  shown,  and  was  probably  a 
concealed  Catholic  chapel  :  a  Council  Chamber  is  to 
be  seen,  without  any  evidence  of  what  councillors 
assembled  in  it,  or  as  to  what  they  assembled  there 
to  confer  about.  The  furniture  of  secrecy  and 
treachery  is  everywhere  to  be  seen  in  this  house, 
whose  history  is  one  quiet  record  of  a  family's  loyalty, 
and  of  fortunate  domestic  event.  It  was  built  in  the 
early  years  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  by  William  Compton, 
probably  on  the  site  of  an  older  building,  certainly 
on  lands  which  had  been  in  the  possession  of  the 
family  for  several  hundreds  of  years.  William 
Compton  enjoyed  throughout  his  life  the  special 
favour  of  the  King  with  six  wives,  fair  round  belly, 
and  "narrow  slits  of  eyes  that  gazed  freely  on  all." 
He  successively  attained  the  posts  of  Royal  Page, 
Chief  Gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber,  Chancellor  of 
Ireland,  and  finally  led  the  rearguard  of  the  King's 
army  at  the  Battle  of  the  Spurs.  This  rearguard  was 
principally  composed  of  the  retinues  of  Richard  Fox, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  and  Wolsey,  and  they  lend  a 
clerical  touch  to  a  battle  in  which  it  seems  strange 
that,  as  a  rearguard,  they  should  have  borne  a 
prominent  part  at  all,  considering  the  precipitancy  of 
the  Frenchmen's  flight.  William  Compton  received, 
however,  the  honour  of  Knighthood  on  this  occasion, 


312  MOATED  HOUSES 

and  further  proofs  of  the  King's  favour  are  in  evidence 
on  the  walls  of  his  Warwickshire  home.  The  royal 
arms  and  the  Tudor  roses  are  emblazoned  on  its 
gateway,  and  in  the  stained-glass  windows  of  the  room 
in  which  Henry  the  Eighth  slept  the  infantine  sleep  of 
the  much-married  and  the  unjust.  Nor  did  heraldic 
honours  end  here.  An  especial  grant  was  made  to 
Sir  William  and  his  heirs  of  an  honourable  augmenta- 
tion of  his  arms  out  of  the  said  King's  own  royal 
ensigns  and  devices — to  wit,  a  lion  passant  guardant 
or,  and  for  crest  a  demi-dragon  erased  gules  within 
a  coronet  of  gold  upon  a  torse  argent  and  vert. 
The  kingly  bestower  of  these  mysterious  symbols  of 
a  royal  favour  was  dangerously  ill  himself  of  the 
sweating  sickness  when  that  virulent  sixteenth- 
century  form  of  our  present-day  influenza  killed  Sir 
William  at  Compton  Winyates  in  1528.  A  year 
before,  the  King  had  seen  the  beauty  of  Anne 
Boleyn  and  had  suddenly  begun  to  hear  the  voice  of 
Conscience  loudly  crying  out  to  him  that  Catherine 
of  Aragon  was  not  his  lawful  wife.  A  year  after- 
wards, Wolsey,  who  had  refused  to  grant  a  probate 
of  Sir  William's  will  till  he  had  fingered  a  thousand 
marks,  was  himself  hurrying  to  his  fall :  his  face 
dwindled  to  half  its  natural  size :  his  misery  so 
apparent  that  his  enemies  could  not  help  pitying  him. 
Forty  years  after,  when  the  Low  Countries  were 
organizing  their  heroic  resistance  to  Alva,  and 
Cartwright,  learned  and  devout  but  as  bigoted  as 
any  mediaeval  inquisitor  who  ever  devoted  a  stubborn 
Jew  to  red-hot  irons  and  boiling  oil,  was  admonishing 
Elizabeth's  Parliament,  and  declaring  that  the  giving 


COMi'TON   WINYATES 


COMPTON  WINYATES  315 

of  a  ring  in  marriage  was  a  mark  of  the  Beast,  the 
grandson  of  the  builder  of  Compton  Winyates  was 
made  a  Baron.     The  making  of  this  Lord  Compton's 
son  William  Earl  of  Northampton  in   1618,  marked 
the  meridian  of  the  house's  glory,  and  added  James 
the  First's  thistle  to  its  heraldic  enblazonments.     The 
comedy   of   the    house    now   begins    to   attract   the 
historian's  notice  with  nods  and  becks  and  wreathed 
smiles.      Before  this  William  Compton  had  attained 
to  an  Earldom,  he  had  taken  the  precautionary  step 
of  marrying  an  heiress.      Disguised  as  a  baker's  boy, 
he  is  said  to  have  carried  a  millionaire's  daughter  off 
in  a  bread-basket.      Canonbury  was  the  classic  scene 
of  this  feat,  and  the  lady's  name  was  Elizabeth.      Her 
father,  Alderman  Sir  John,  put  on  all  the  Alderman 
that  was  in  him  at  this  outrage  to  civic  dignity.      He 
indeed  took  this    romantic  escapade    in  the    form  of 
a  runaway  marriage  so    ill,   that   for  a  long  time  he 
refused    to    recognize    it.      Bread    and    cheese    and 
kisses  were  the  married  couple's  fare,  till  the  inter- 
vention of  the  reigning  Queen  was  invoked  to  smooth 
over  matters  and   provide  a  more  substantial  larder. 
So  successful  were  Elizabeth's  efforts,  that  on  the  death 
of  his    father-in-law,    by    this    time    Lord    Mayor  of 
London,  Lord  Compton  found  that  his  wife  was  one 
of  the  richest  women  in  England.     Certain  pirates  of 
Dunkirk,   well   posted  up  in  fashionable  intelligence, 
were  also  apprised  of  this  matrimonial  windfall.     They 
set  a  scheme  on  foot  to  carry  off  Lord  Compton,  in 
order  to  extort  a  ransom.      He  saved  them  the  trouble 
by  temporarily  going  off  his  head. 

Whether  the  cellars  of   Compton    Winyates  had 


316  MOATED  HOUSES 

any  share  in  this  unusual  outcome  of  a  sudden  suc- 
cession to  riches  is  not  generally  known,  but  it  is 
probable  that  they  had.  The  most  interesting  feature 
of  the  incident  is  the  heroic  remedy  for  a  husband's 
disordered  brain  which  was  immediately  applied  by 
the  level-headed  wife.  After  Lord  Compton  had 
been  maundering  and  gibbering  for  some  time  over 
the  enormous  extent  of  what  he  looked  upon  as  his 
own  wealth,  Lady  Compton  brought  him  to  his  senses 
by  writing  and  telling  him  what  use  she  intended 
making  of  it  herself.  Here  follow  some  of  her  require- 
ments: .£2600  quarterly  ;  ^600  for  charities  (quarterly 
also);  ^6000  for  jewels;  ^4000  for  a  certain  pearl 
chain;  ^2200  to  furnish  her  purse  with  at  starting 
on  this  expenditure.  A  further  proviso  made  it  clear 
that  all  her  debts  were  to  be  paid,  as  well  as  her 
servants'  wages ;  and  she  stipulated  expressly  for  a 
doubled  allowance,  and  ^2000  more  in  cash  on  her 
husband  attaining  to  the  Earldom. 

Some  minor  wants  are  interesting  from  the  light 
they  throw  on  the  customs  of  the  time.  This  future 
first  Countess  of  Northampton  required  three  horses 
for  her  own  saddle.  No  one  was  to  dare  to  lend 
these  but  herself,  and  no  one  was  to  dare  to  borrow 
them  but  her  husband.  This  last  proviso  was  not 
necessary,  as  the  future  Earl  was  not  up  to  horse  at 
the  moment,  being  more  fit  for  a  strait-jacket  than  for 
horse  exercise.  Two  gentlewomen  were  next  called 
for,  to  accompany  her  when  she  went  hunting  or 
hawking  or  travelling  from  one  house  to  another. 
Light  is  here  thrown  on  the  common  way  of  paying 
Elizabethan  visits.  Coaches  could  not  always  be 


COMPTON  WINYATES  317 

committed  to  Elizabethan  country  roads.  When  the 
feat  was  possible,  two  coaches  were  to  be  in  readiness  : 
one  for  herself,  to  be  lined  with  velvet  and  drawn  by 
"four  very  fair  horses";  the  other  for  her  ladies. 
This  latter  was  also  to  make  some  show  in  the  country- 
side. It  was  to  be  lined  with  cloth  and  -laced  with 
gold,  or  lined  with  scarlet  and  laced  with  silver.  Four 
more  horses  were  to  be  supplied  for  this  vehicle,  to 
say  nothing  of  six  or  eight  gentlemen  as  an  escort. 
Caroches  and  spare  horses  were  also  to  be  held  in 
readiness,  and  a  curious  picture  is  given  of  a  great 
Elizabethan  lady's  washerwomen  being  sent  on  before 
her  in  the  company  of  chambermaids,  whose  duty  it 
was  to  see  that  her  lodgings  were  ready  and  sweet 
and  clean.  Great  ladies  seem  to  have  carried  furniture 
with  them  in  those  days  when  they  went  visiting. 
Beds,  stools,  chairs,  suitable  cushions,  silver  warming- 
pans,  cupboards  of  plate,  fair  hangings,  represented 
the  "  excess  luggage  "  of  our  fair  travellers  of  present 
times.  A  complete  drawing-room  suite  seems  also  to 
have  been  carried  about  the  country  from  one  house 
to  another,  consisting  of  hangings,  couch,  canopy, 
glass,  carpet,  chairs,  cushions.  No  wonder  that  when 
ladies  went  on  a  visit  in  those  days  they  went  on  "  a 
round  of  them."  The  roads  must  have  shown  a  lively 
aspect  under  one  of  these  perambulations.  A  country 
call  must  have  assumed  the  proportions  of  a  travelling 
caravanserai.  Lady  Compton  may  have  been  a 
grand  and  prudent  dame  fit  to  have  a  princely  fortune 
— but  her  husband  saw  impending  bankruptcy  peeping 
from  the  pages  of  this  billet-doux.  He  hastily  resumed 
his  reason. 


318  MOATED  HOUSES 

The  son  of  this  Earl  whose  weak  brain  thus  reeled 
under  the  stroke  of  good  fortune  was  a  character 
of  a  very  different  stamp.  Far  from  falling  prone 
under  Prosperity's  smile,  he  unflinchingly  faced  the 
long  days  of  disaster  which  dogged  Charles  the  First's 
footsteps  during  the  great  Civil  War,  and  fell  at  last 
on  Hopton  Heath,  gallantly  fighting  for  that  lost 
cause  to  which  his  devotion  had  been  from  the  first 
unfailing.  The  title  of  "  the  Loyal  Earl  "  rewarded  his 
chivalric  services,  accompanied  by  the  curses  of  the 
neighbouring  Warwickshire  blacksmiths  (Parliament- 
arians to  a  man)  whom  he  compelled  at  the  pistol-point 
to  shoe  Cavaliers'  horses.  Compton  Winyates  stood 
an  unflawed  jewel  of  loyalty  in  the  centre  of  a  country 
notoriously  hostile  to  the  cause  of  Church  and  King. 
By  a  process  perhaps  perfectly  natural,  a  future  Bishop 
of  London  was  born  there,  ten  years  before  Charles 
the  First  hoisted  the  royal  standard  on  that  stormy 
afternoon  at  Nottingham.  The  career  of  this 
ecclesiastic  of  the  house  must  be  told,  but  not  till  some 
details  have  been  given  of  his  father's  loyal  services 
in  the  tented  field.  He  was  Spencer  (the  second 
Earl's  sixth  son).  Three  of  the  future  Bishop's 
brothers  at  all  events  took  arms  for  the  King  at  their 
father's  bidding,  and  were  respectively  made  by  him 
Commander,  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  a  regiment  of  horse 
raised  by  himself,  and  Governor  of  Banbury  Castle. 
In  the  preceding  July  the  loyal  father  of  these  sons 
had  undertaken  the  difficult  task  of  executing  the 
Commission  of  Array  in  Warwickshire.  With  what 
force  he  could  muster  from  a  stubborn  and  particularly 
Roundheaded  peasantry,  he  made  a  dash  on  Banbury, 


=j/»        f  >  «&.  •     „*"   ' 

1R*  -\-  *<  '• 


k  Jwi/ 
J 


d 


COMPTON   WINYATES 


COMPTON  WINYATES  321 

and  took  some  guns  of  position  that  Lord  Brook  was 
trying  to  throw  into  the  place.  A  skirmish  with  John 
Hampden  at  Southam  five  days  after  had  a  less 
fortunate  issue,  his  newly  recruited  Warwickshire 
Cavaliers  showing  either  Parliamentary  proclivities, 
or,  to  put  a  more  amiable  construction  on  their  conduct, 
a  total  lack  of  control  over  their  horses  at  a  precipitate 
moment.  A  ride  in  better  company  at  Worcester 
introduced  "the  Loyal  Earl"  to  the  King's  guard,  and 
to  Rupert  of  the  Rhine  ;  and  on  the  night  of  the  2  ist  of 
October  he  entertained  Charles  the  First  at  Compton 
Winyates,  and  rode  with  him  on  the  following  misty 
autumn  morning  on  to  the  plateau  of  Edgehill. 
But  the  March  of  the  following  year  brought  a  fatal 
end  to  the  Earl  of  Northampton's  services  to  Church 
and  King.  He  set  out  from  Banbury  to  relieve 
Leicester,  but  arriving  too  late,  hurried  to  Stafford  to 
relieve  the  Royalists,  who  were  also  in  straitened 
circumstances,  there.  He  succeeded  in  raising  the 
siege  and  throwing  provisions  and  ammunition  into 
the  town.  But  Sir  John  Cell  and  Sir  William  Brereton 
were  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  with  a  large  Parlia- 
mentary force,  and  the  Earl  of  Northampton  marched 
out  of  Stafford  to  meet  them.  The  armies  joined 
issue  on  Hopton  Heath.  In  a  brilliantly  conceived 
and  executed  charge  which  he  led  in  person,  the 
commander  for  the  King  routed  the  rebel  cavalry  and 
took  eight  guns.  Their  infantry,  however,  rallied  to 
cover  the  cavalry's  retreat,  and  Northampton  was 
killed  whilst  pushing  his  pursuit,  scornfully  refusing 
to  surrender  "to  base  rogues  and  rebels."  His 
character  lives  in  his  deeds.  His  eulogy  has  been 


21 


322  MOATED  HOUSES 

written  by  Clarendon,  and  bears  the  following  testimony 
to  his  worth  :  "  All  distresses  he  bore  like  a  common 
man,  and  all  wants  and  hardness  as  if  he  had  never 
known  plenty  and  ease.  Most  prodigal  of  his  person 
in  danger,  and  would  often  say  '  that  if  he  outlived 
these  wars,  he  was  certain  never  to  have  so  noble  a 
death.' '  A  brilliant  courtier,  not  to  say  a  prodigal 
one,  before  the  shadow  of  the  Civil  War  fell  across 
Whitehall,  the  cheerful  readiness  with  which  he 
exchanged  town  luxuries  for  the  hardships  of  the 
field  stamp  him  as  a  typical  Cavalier.  They  must 
have  been  chivalrous  characters  these  fighting 
Comptons.  This  man's  son  extorted  a  eulogy  even 
from  Cromwell. 

The  fortunes  of  the  house  now  reached  their 
lowest  ebb  in  company,  as  was  fitting,  with  those  of 
Charles  the  First.  The  same  year  which  saw  the 
Ironsides  so  triumphantly  vindicate  Cromwell's  genius 
as  a  leader  and  organizer  of  men  on  Long  Marston 
Moor,  saw  Compton  Winyates'  surrender  to  the  rebel 
forces  after  an  ineffectual  resistance  of  two  days. 
Milton  was  publishing  his  Areopagitica  at  this 
devastating  moment. 

It  is  uncertain  who  was  in  command  at  Compton 
Winyates  during  its  short  siege.  Its  sudden  surrender 
suggests  that  only  a  skeleton  garrison  held  it.  But 
it  is  possible  that  the  future  Bishop  of  London  was 
present  at  the  ceremony,  and  may  have  previously 
fired  a  shot  or  two  at  the  enemies  of  his  house,  though 
he  was  only  eleven  years  old  at  the  time.  Later  on, 
when  he  was  Bishop,  he  told  James  the  Second  that 
he  had  formerly  drawn  his  sword  in  defence  of  the 


COMPTON  WINYATES  325 

Constitution,  by  which  it  was  gathered  that  as  a  youth 
he  had  taken  some  part  in  the  Civil  War.  A  very 
short  time  after,  he  startled  Oxford's  veneration  for 
the  clergy  by  appearing  in  that  city  at  the  head  of 
a  small  regiment  "in  a  blue  coat  and  naked  sword." 
The  Bishop  of  London  was  at  this  time  performing 
the  episcopal  duties  of  conveying  his  pupil  the 
Princess  Anne  out  of  the  reach  of  her  unconstitutional 
father.  Ecclesiastical  Oxford  must  have  rubbed  her 
ey^s  at  this  new  type  of  Christian  soldier !  But  the 
fighting  spirit  of  his  race  was  always  strong  in  Spencer 
Compton.  In  Restoration  days  he  had  held  a 
cornetcy  in  the  Royal  Life  Guards  before  he  entered 
the  Church. 

He  took  holy  orders  at  Cambridge  in  1661,  and 
the  stations  paused  at  in  a  rapid  journey  to  Fulham 
included  Cottenham  Rectory  (1666),  St.  Cross 
Hospital,  Winchester  (1667),  Christchurch  Canonry 
(1669),  Oxford  (Bishop's  Palace,  1674),  London 
(Fulham)  1675.  The  attainment  of  this  final  dignity 
brought  the  zealous  High  Churchman,  who  had  once 
been  a  soldier  and  who  never  divested  himself  of  a 
military  bearing,  into  violent  contention  with  James 
the  Second.  A  Compton  was  for  the  first  time  seen 
arguing  with  his  King,  and  undergoing  the  agreeable 
experience  of  "  a  lick  with  the  rough  side  of  Lord 
Chancellor  Jeffreys'  tongue."  The  Declaration  of 
Indulgence  at  last  goaded  this  Cavalier  prelate  into 
rebellion.  He  has  already  been  seen  riding  about 
the  streets  of  Oxford  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hands. 
He  would  have  used  it,  too,  if  James  had  not  obviated 
so  unclerical  a  necessity  by  a  precipitate  flight.  This 


326  MOATED  HOUSES 

unpleasantness  passed,  Compton  settled  down  to  his 
episcopal  duties  and  botanical  pursuits  in  his  much 
beloved  Fulham.  That  moated  Bishop's  Palace  may 
have  reminded  the  occupier  of  his  moated  Warwick- 
shire home. 

His  death,  which  took  place  in  1713,  closes  the 
record  of  the  Cavalier  Comptons,  and  invites  a  few 
remarks  on  the  fine  old  Warwickshire  moated  house 
which  gave  birth  to  so  strenuous  a  race.  The  family's 
reputation  for  loyalty,  as  has  already  been  noticed,  is 
written  large  in  stone  and  stamped  on  stained  glass 
all  over  the  house  : — in  the  great  hall,  with  its  finely 
timbered  roof  and  minstrels'  gallery  :  in  the  drawing- 
room's  oak  panels  and  richly  ornamented  plaster 
ceilings  :  in  the  bedrooms  in  which  two  Kings  have 
slept.  The  open  nature  of  the  race,  however,  does 
not  seem  to  show  itself  in  the  singular  number  of 
Priests'  Holes,  blind  staircases,  twisted  chimneys, 
and  carefully  contrived  hiding-places,  which  give 
to  Compton  Winyates,  above  all  other  houses  in 
England,  the  character  of  an  emphasized  secretiveness. 
Nor  is  a  sense  of  some  mystery  overhanging  the  place 
lessened  by  the  view  of  no  less  than  four  private 
staircases  leading  into  a  Roman  Catholic  chapel. 
Indelible  memories  of  the  Old  Religion  thus  lie  stored 
in  the  very  heart  of  a  house  whose  successive  owners 
unflinchingly  proclaimed  a  militant  Protestantism. 
In  this  carefully  hidden  celebration  of  the  Mass  lies 
much  of  Compton  Winyates'  mystery.  What  member 
of  this  loyal  family  of  Protestants  returned,  unknown 
to  his  kindred,  to  the  worship  of  the  earlier  faith  ? 
Or  was  that  silent  reconciliation  both  known  and 


COMPTON  WINYATES  327 

respected  ?  Was  it  some  lady  of  the  house  who  once 
again  told  the  rosary  at  Compton  ?  Did  some 
Cavalier  fresh  from  those  Councils  of  Charles  the 
First  (which  were  not  solely  inspired  by  Church  of 
England  men)  pass  silently  to  the  consolation  of 
confession  ?  The  dark  red  old  house,  with  its  gables, 
towers,  and  strangely  twisted  chimneys,  keeps  in  its 
withered  heart  the  secret  which  will  never  be  revealed. 
Shrouded  by  wooded  hills,  it  seems  to  brood  over  it 
in  a  forlorn  solitude. 


XXII 

BROUGHTON  CASTLE 
1300-1544 

IN  the  year  1810  a  large  elm  tree  was  felled  in  the 
grounds  of  Broughton  Castle,  and  beneath  the 
roots  of  the  tree  a  gold  ring  was  found.  On  it 
was  engraved  the  figure  of  a  Knight.  His  legs  were 
crossed  as  a  sign  that  he  was  a  Crusader.  His  shield 
bore  for  device  the  arms  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem. 
Upon  a  scroll  was  written  "  Joie  sans  ni  cesse."  This 
is  all  that  is  known  of  a  relic  which  had,  it  is  very 
likely,  lain  five  hundred  years  in  the  earth,  and  which 
brings  back  with  it  memories  of  those  days  of  chivalry 
and  romance  long  since  dead,  when  Knights  dared 
all  things  for  their  ladies'  eyes,  and  Templar  and 
Hospitaller  closed  their  serried  ranks  for  the  relief  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

The  relic  also,  in  all  probability,  fixes  the  date  of 
the  earliest  part  of  Broughton  Castle,  a  moated  house 
which  lies  two  miles  south-west  of  Banbury,  and 
whose  foundations  were  laid  about  the  time  when 
the  greatest  Order  of  Monastic  Knighthood  that  the 
world  has  ever  known  was  tottering  to  its  fall.  Its 

vast  possessions  were  already  being  marked  out  for 

323 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  329 

the  possession  of  a  greedy  King,  and  of  that  other 
company  of  military  monks  whose  fame  as  Crusaders 
was  second  only  to  theirs.  The  earlier  part  of 
B  rough  ton  is  therefore  redolent  of  the  Crusade.  Its 
later  foundations  reflect  with  an  equal  potency  the 
passages  of  a  less  sacred  strife,  whose  civil  cause  was 
so  doubtful  that  son  and  father  often  fought  in  op- 
posing ranks.  But  apart  from  this  reflection  of  two 
periods  of  a  nation's  warfare,  the  singular  impressive- 
ness  of  this  Castle  lies  in  the  fact  that,  built  into  each 
other  in  an  indissoluble  union  of  stone,  and  standing 
side  by  side,  are  two  distinct  periods  of  England's 
domestic  architecture  with  a  lapse  of  two  hundred  and 
forty-four  years  separating  the  two. 

The  general  view  of  this  building,  made  up  as  it  is 
of  two  great  houses  built  into  one,  and  bridging  in 
their  architectural  features  so  wide  an  interval  of  years, 
is  a  very  striking  one.  The  entrance  to  it  is  made  in 
the  invariable  way  by  a  bridge  over  the  moat.  But 
the  moat  of  Broughton  is  unusually  wide  and  deep, 
and  the  stone  bridge  which  spans  it  has  two  arches. 
The  outer  gate,  as  is  common  in  many  houses  of  the 
kind,  is  strangely  enough  perfect,  and  the  assaults  of 
time  and  of  more  immediately  pressing  assailants  are 
seen  to  have  produced  the  less  effect,  in  proportion  as 
more  the  greater  effect  was  to  be  expected.  The 
portcullis,  however  (an  equally  essential  factor  in 
mediaeval  domestic  comfort),  seems  to  have  been  not 
so  successful  in  repelling  the  common  enemy,  and 
must  be  reported  as  missing.  And  in  the  same 
casualty  list  must  be  set  down  two  other  gates 
which  have  only  left  their  staples  behind  them  to 


330  MOATED  HOUSES 

show  that  they  took  part  in  the  fight  with  time  at  all. 
It  is  time  meanwhile  to  leave  these  outworks  of  the 
Castle  (efficient  or  otherwise)  and  get  inside. 

The  old  part  of  the  house  was  built  by  the  De 
Broughtons  in  the  days  of  one  of  the  early  Edwards, 
and  faces  east.  I  should  suggest  1301  as  a  date 
drawn  at  a  venture,  and  the  times  when  Barons  were 
demanding  nomination  of  Ministers  by  Parliament, 
and  exacting  fresh  confirmation  of  the  Charters,  is  not 
obscurely  hinted  at  by  the  loopholes  for  the  discharge 
of  arrows  in  the  small  tower  at  the  south-east  angle. 
These  were  the  days  when  Bohun,  Earl  of  Hereford, 
and  Bigod,  Earl  of  Norfolk,  were  beginning  to  be 
busy,  and  the  loopholes  at  Broughton  bring  that 
scene  before  the  mind's  eye  between  the  first  Edward 
and  these  two  truculent  subjects.  The  matter  of 
dispute  between  the  parties  was  a  simple  one,  but  it 
ended  in  strange  words.  Edward  wanted  to  go  to 
Flanders,  and  wanted  the  Earls  to  go  to  Gascony  ; 
but  they  wanted  to  go  to  Flanders  too,  it  would  seem  ; 
and  ingeniously  reminded  the  fifth  of  the  Plantagenets 
that  they  were  not  bound  to  foreign  service  save  in 
attendance  on  the  King.  One  can  hear  the  royal 
oaths  that  followed  this  declaration  of  right,  catch 
through  the  centuries  (when  coherency  stepped  to 
the  rescue)  the  words  of  the  ensuing  talk  : — 

"  By  God,  Sir  Earl,"  says  the  King  to  Bigod,  "  you 
shall  either  go  or  hang."  "  By  God,  Sir  King,"  says 
the  Earl  to  Edward,  "  I  will  neither  go  nor  hang." 
The  air  resounds  with  these  mediaeval  oaths.  We 
had  better  get  to  the  later  part  of  the  building. 

This  lies  on  the  north  front,  and  was  joined  on  to 


MOUGHTON  CASTLE  331 

the  older  part  by  the  celebrated  family  of  Fiennes 
about  four  years  before  the  dying  Henry  the 
Eighth  made  the  old  Palace  of  Westminster  quake 
with  his  monstrous  bellowings.  We  are  in  a  milder 
atmosphere  here,  leave  something  at  all  events  of  the 
stern  age  of  the  Barons  behind  us,  as  we  pass  into 
the  great  hall  beneath  a  canopy  surmounted  by  the 
arms  of  the  new  builders.  But  even  here  some  gentle 
reminders  are  given  of  the  Plantagenets'  birch  of 
broom.  The  walls  of  the  hall  are  simply  rough  stone- 
work. The  passages  about  the  Castle  are  curiously 
arched.  Arched  stone  represents  the  ceiling  of  the 
dining-room.  Stone  staircases  are  everywhere,  as  if 
made  for  the  express  purpose  of  echoing  armed  feet. 
Even  when,  by  an  unconventional  bit  of  architectural 
harlequinade,  a  chapel  has  been  turned  into  a 
dressing-room,  a  stone  staircase  leads  to  it.  What 
we  call  in  these  days  spare  bedrooms  are  full  of  the 
same  uncompromising  material,  though  in  Broughton's 
earlier  days  they  shadowed  what  are  irreverently 
called  the  fat  slumbers  of  the  Church.  Some  fine 
stained-glass  windows  bearing  very  ancient  arms  do 
something  towards  dispelling  a  despondent  feeling 
which  dimly  suggests  dungeons — but  it  is  not  till  the 
second  floor  in  the  house  is  reached,  and  by  the 
ascent  the  grand  drawing-room,  that  the  age  of 
violence  is  completely  left  behind,  and  we  enter 
domestic  surroundings  of  splendour  and  peace.  It  is 
not,  however,  the  splendid  ceiling  richly  decorated 
with  armorial  bearings,  the  stained-glass  windows, 
the  rich  hangings  and  other  accessaries  to  civilization 
and  comfort,  which  most  directly  induce  the  feeling 


332  MOATED  HOUSES 

that  the  age  of  barbarism  is  past,  and  that  of  a 
social  intercourse  almost  equally  perfidious  risen  ;  but 
strange  to  say,  a  most  elaborate  entrance  to  the  room. 
This  entrance  bears  traces  of  having  been  set  up  when 
the  King  enjoyed  his  own  again.  And  it  is  surmounted 
by  the  following  very  singular  motto,  considering  that 
the  head  of  the  house  had  undeviatingly  pursued  the 
course  of  a  rampant  Puritanism  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  the  Civil  War.  The  motto  runs  as  follows  : — 

"Quod  olim  fuit  meminisse  minime  Juvat." 

"  Let  bygones  be  bygones,  and  say  no  more  about 
the  matter,"  has  hardly  been  hazarded  as  a  rough 
translation  up  to  date,  than  the  Broughton  drawing- 
room  is  revisited  by  the  strange  figure  of  the  setter-up 
of  this  text,  so  significantly  suggesting  the  turncoat, 
and  dressed  in  a  costume  in  which  Charles  the  Second 
struggles  tonsorially  with  Oliver  Cromwell.  "Old 
Subtlety  "  appears  in  creaking  shoes. 

His  name,  when  in  the  flesh,  was  William  Fiennes, 
first  Viscount  Say  and  Sele,  and  he  was  the  son  of 
Richard  Fiennes,  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  by  Constance, 
daughter  of  Sir  William  Kingsmill.  He  succeeded 
his  father  as  master  of  Broughton  Castle  when  he 
was  twenty-one,  and  he  was  buried  at  Broughton  on 
1 4th  April  1662,  having  attained  the  respectable  age 
of  sixty,  and  lived  through  one  of  the  most  troublous 
times  in  our  history. 

When  it  is  said  that  he  sailed  to  affluence  over 
those  troubled  seas,  and  after  serving  every  party 
found  himself  on  the  winning  side,  an  idea  may  be 
formed  of  his  political  capacity.  Yet  he  remains  an 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  333 

enigma  in  a  high-crowned  hat  and  a  collar  Puri- 
tanically starched.  Nobody  seems  to  know  exactly 
what  he  wanted  except  himself,  and  he  probably 
wouldn't  have  been  able  to  define  it.  He  was  an  in- 
carnate embodiment  of  chronic  Opposition,  bounded 
by  a  vista  of  self-advancement.  This  faculty  of 
opposition  to  everybody  and  everything  makes  him 
akin  to  the  Irishman  of  the  story,  who  on  landing  in 
a  savage  island  and  on  being  told  that  there  was  no 
Government  there,  said,  "Then  I'm  against  it." 
'Clarendon  himself  seems  puzzled  by  this  strange 
character ;  sums  up  his  qualities  carefully  ;  does  not 
seem  to  know  what  to  make  of  him.  "  Close  and  re- 
served, mean  and  narrow  as  regards  money  matters, 
of  great  parts  and  high  ambition,"  these  are  terms 
that  the  historian  of  the  Civil  War  could  have  applied 
as  justly  to  other  leaders  of  the  Puritan  party,  and 
even  then  he  has  to  qualify  this  criticism.  He  adds 
that  "  Old  Subtlety  "  would  not  be  satisfied  with  offices 
and  preferments  without  some  condescensions  and 
alterations  in  ecclesiastical  matters."  Here  we  ex- 
perience the  true  Puritan  touch.  We  have  not  got  yet 
to  the  upturned  eyes,  and  the  out-turned  toes,  and  the 
gasps  and  the  groans  of  the  rigid  precisian ;  but  we 
have  come  very  near  to  them,  and  can  well  imagine 
what  long-winded  discourses  on  theological  subtleties 
preceded  and  rounded  the  Broughton  family  prayers. 
On  those  devotional  occasions,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  household  had  a  taste  of  the  only  real  truth  in 
matters  ecclesiastic.  It  proved  too  strong  for  "Old 
Subtlety's"  second  son  Nathaniel,  of  whom  more 
by  and  by.  That  future  stout  soldier  of  the  Com- 


334  .        MOATED  HOUSES 

monwealth  had  to  fly  to  Geneva  of  all  places  in 
Europe  "  to  improve  his  disinclination  to  the  Church 
with  which  milk  he  had  been  nursed."  Here  we  have 
a  result  of  "  Old  Subtlety's  "  "  insistence  in  alterations 
in  ecclesiastical  affairs."  Similar  experiences  remain 
with  us  to  this  day. 

Let  us  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  how  William 
Fiennes  pursued  this  ideal  in  the  larger  world  outside 
the  walls  of  Broughton  Castle.  His  methods  of 
realizing  his  high  aims  may  seem  singular.  Let  us 
start  from  the  year  1621,  when  the  "  Old  Subtlety  "  of 
future  years  was  aged  only  thirty-nine.  What  variety 
of  courses  in  public  life  do  we  find  him  taking  ?  And 
gathering  what  honours  and  emoluments  by  the  way  ? 

Roaring  for  the  degradation  of  Lord  Bacon ! 
Opposing  the  Benevolence,  and  spending  six  months 
in  the  Fleet !  Courting  the  friendship  of  the  profli- 
gate Duke  of  Buckingham,  fresh  from  his  notorious 
journey  to  Spain !  A  Viscountship  rewards  this  effort 
for  the  only  true  Protestantism,  and  shows  our  re- 
former at  the  same  time  a  favourite  at  James  the 
First's  bibulous  Court.  Two  years  after  he  opposes 
the  Forced  Loan,  and  simultaneously  goes  in  for  a 
little  company  promoting.  His  aim  is  to  colonize 
the  island  of  New  Providence  in  the  Caribbean  Sea, 
for  the  benefit  of  Ecclesiasticism  of  course.  This  is 
quite  an  Exeter  Hall  touch.  He  is  so  eager  to 
people  New  Providence  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Gospel  that  he  has  to  publish  disparaging  reports  of 
his  own  country.  His  austere  Christianity  especially 
shines  in  a  complaint  "  that  in  England,  masters  must 
not  correct  their  servants."  A  side  view  of  the 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  335 

bastinado  and  the  knotted  whip  is  here  caught,  and 
one  begins  to  wonder  to  what  use  the  dungeons  may 
have  been  put  at  Broughton  Castle.  We  appear  to 
be  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin, 
but  we  are  only  in  the  fifth  year  of  Charles  the  First. 
Now,  this  proposer  of  servant-beating,  not  to  say  of 
the  slave  trade  for  his  own  profit,  is  seen  as  the  Sir 
Oracle  of  the  Puritan  party.  The  room  is  still  shown 
at  Broughton  where  the  malcontents — Hampden, 
Elliot,  and  others — used  to  meet,  listening  for  long 
hours  to  "  Old  Subtlety's  "  fine-drawn  distinctions,  till 
the  candles  burnt  down  to  their  sockets  and  the  dawn 
began  to  come  slowly  to  the  rescue  of  those  windy 
councillors.  The  oubliette  just  outside  the  door 
gaped  in  vain  for  a  breakfast  too  long  delayed.  Had 
it  remained  open  on  one  of  these  occasions,  Charles 
the  First's  cause  would  not  have  been  engulfed.  The 
question  of  Ship  Money  next  impels  "  Old  Subtlety  "  to 
the  exercise  of  his  master-passion,  and  to  cry  out 
"  No ! "  The  same  proclivity  urges  him  to  use  the 
same  word  when  Charles  the  First,  whom  he  had 
followed  to  the  Scotch  wars,  asks  him  to  take  the 
military  oath.  "No"  should  be  written  all  over 
Broughton  Castle,  as  "  Que  Scais  je  "  was  carved  on 
the  beams  of  Montaigne's  chateau  at  Perigord. 
"  No,"  however,  was  not  the  word  when  in  1641  the 
same  King  proffered  "Old  Subtlety  "  a  Privy  Councillor- 
ship,  or  when  he  suggested  that  the  Mastership  of  the 
Court  of  Wards  would  be  a  becoming  post,  or  that  as 
a  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury  he  might  find  an 
added  opportunity  for  ecclesiastical  reform.  "  Yes," 
strange  to  say,  was  the  eager  not  to  say  rapacious 


336  MOATED  HOUSES 

reply  to  each  of  these  three  queries.  Being  now  a 
full  and  rewarded  courtier  of  the  King,  the  next  step 
"  Old  Subtlety  "  takes  is  to  sign  the  Grand  Remon- 
strance, which  did  more  than  anything  else  to  precipi- 
tate the  Civil  War  and  to  dethrone  him.  I  can  see 
"  Old  Subtlety,"  after  the  successful  division  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  waving  his  hat  over  his  head, 
taking  his  sword  in  its  scabbard  out  of  its  belt  and 
beating  the  point  on  the  ground  at  his  joy  at  an  issue 
which  was  to  set  England  in  arms.  Providence  had 
interposed  (not  New  Providence,  be  it  well  under- 
stood). A  quickly  shifted  scene  now  shows  him  as  a 
street  orator,  bareheaded,  trying  to  explain  the  fiasco  of 
Edgehill  to  a  solemn  circle  of  gaping  London  citizens. 
Now  our  ecclesiastical  reformer,  instead  of  setting 
other  people's  houses  in  order,  has  to  see  about  fortify- 
ing his  own.  B  rough  ton  Castle,  however,  after  a 
tame  resistance,  surrenders  to  the  King.  But  for  this 
and  other  more  successful  martial  efforts,  £  1 400  came 
into  "Old  Subtlety's"  coffers  when  the  Parliamentary 
party  finally  triumphed.  Military  or  mercenary 
instincts  had,  however,  no  sooner  impelled  him  to  side 
with  the  Army  against  the  Parliament,  than  some 
occult  influence,  probably  the  forbidding  figure  of 
Cromwell  ''casting  a  shade,"  prompted  him  to  try 
and  patch  up  a  peace  with  the  King.  When  the  axe 
had  fallen  outside  the  fatal  window  at  Whitehall,  our 
hero  discovered  that  he  had  never  had  the  least 
thought  of  dissolving  the  Monarchy.  The  idea  had 
come  a  little  late,  but  nothing  seems  more  certain 
than  that  no  one  in  England  more  abhorred  the  idea 
of  the  levelling  of  ranks  and  classes  which  he  fancied 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE,  OXFORDSHIRE        339 

impending,  or  was  more  proud  of  being  distinguished 
from  other  men  by  his  title.  London  being  no  longer 
a  place  for  him,  he  retired  to  Lundy.  Not  finding 
that  island  large  enough  for  literature,  he  betook  him- 
self to  his  ancestral  seat,  and  the  moated  quietude  of 
Broughton  Castle  presently  brought  forth  the  two 
following  works,  designed  of  course  for  the  purpose 
of  edifying : — 

1.  Folly  and  Madness  made  Evident  (a  tract  against 
the  Quakers). 

2.  The  Quakers  Reply  Manifested  to  be  Railing. 

This  business  finished  (and  the  Quakers  also),  "  Old 
Subtlety  "  laid  down  his  pen,  and  calmly  awaited  the 
Restoration. 

His  strange  quest  "for  some  condescension  and 
alteration  in  ecclesiastical  matters,"  as  Clarendon 
called  it,  has  been  traced  for  forty-one  years,  and  may 
appear  to  some  people  to  be  worthy  of  a  shorter  and 
less  dignified  phrase.  The  suggestion  may  force  itself 
upon  the  mind,  that  "Old  Subtlety's"  changes  were 
too  sudden  to  be  politically  inspiring,  if  they  did  not 
amount  in  some  cases  to  an  absolutely  pantomimic 
change  of  front.  But  in  every  pantomime,  political 
or  otherwise,  the  final  transformation  scene  comes  at 
last,  and  is  immediately  followed  by  the  fall  of  the 
curtain.  In  "  Old  Subtlety's "  case  the  climax 
took  place  within  a  year  of  his  death  ;  when,  after  a 
prolonged  search  after  ecclesiastical  truth,  and  a 
successful  attempt  to  serve  two  masters,  he  put  the 
final  touch  to  a  political  career  by  serving  three,  and 
opened  the  gates  of  Broughton  to  Charles  the 


340  MOATED  HOUSES 

Second.  The  elaborate  entrance  to  the  great  draw- 
ing-room, which  has  already  been  described,  stood 
ready  for  the  final  political  somersault ;  the  motto 
written  above  it  was  there  for  all  to  read !  We  can 
see  "  Old  Subtlety  "  pointing  to  it  slyly,  as  he  ushers 
the  Merry  Monarch  into  the  room  ;  catch  the  sound 
of  Old  Rowley's  sardonic  laugh.  Quite  close  by  was 
the  room  in  which  the  Puritan  leaders  under  the 
immediate  direction  of  his  present  host  had  plotted 
his  father's  overthrow. 

Death  closed  this  instructive  career  on  i4th  April 
1662.  But  while  the  deceased  politician  had  been 
busy  speculating,  company  promoting,  striving  for 
some  alteration  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  and  perhaps 
doing  something  else  in  the  way  of  serving  his  country 
for  a  profit  to  which  decency  forbids  us  to  give  a  name, 
the  fortunes  of  B  rough  ton  Castle  had  been  as  strenu- 
ously and  more  honourably  upheld  by  two  sons.  Their 
history  is  the  biography  of  two  soldier  brothers,  the 
younger  of  whom  had  a  veneration  amounting  almost 
to  idolatry  for  the  elder.  The  latter's  name  was 
Nathaniel.  The  younger  brother's  name  was  John. 
We  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  Nathaniel  already, 
trying  to  throw  off  at  Geneva  the  too  heavy  form  of 
religious  food  that  had  been  stuffed  down  his  un- 
willing neck  at  Broughton.  He  sat  in  the  Long 
Parliament  as  Member  for  Banbury,  but  put  off  the 
senator's  robes  for  the  soldier's  morion  when  the  drums 
began  to  roll  for  the  Civil  War.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  to  take  the  field,  and  commanded  a  regiment  of 
horse  in  the  army  of  Essex.  A  failure  to  prevent  the 
Earl  of  Northampton  from  capturing  some  guns 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  341 

which  had  been  sent  by  Lord  Brooke  to  Banbury,  was 
redeemed  in  the  fight  at  Worcester,  where  in  the 
moment  of  a  second  defeat  he  distinguished  himself 
by  conspicuous  courage.  The  details  of  Nathaniel's 
gallantry  on  this  occasion  will  be  found  chronicled  in 
a  publication  bearing  the  singular  title  of  Jehovah- 
Jireh,  on  page  164.  The  name  of  the  work  is  typical 
perhaps  of  the  man  whose  conduct  it  describes.  For 
in  Nathaniel  Fiennes,  and  even  more  so  in  his  brother 
John,  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  true  type  of 
Roundhead  who  overthrew  the  cause  of  the  Cavaliers, 
whose  military  enthusiasm  was  heightened  by  a 
religious  tinge,  who  fought  as  well  as  lived  as  if 
always  under  the  Great  Taskmaster's  eye.  Nathaniel 
rode  at  Edgehill  in  Sir  William  Balfour's  regiment  of 
horse,  where  he  received  a  very  real  impression  of  the 
express  nature  of  Prince  Rupert's  fiery  onslaughts. 
Rallying  flying  troopers  was  his  arduous  task  in  the 
intervals  of  a  pursuit  kept  up  for  miles.  The  defence 
and  surrender  of  his  own  home  was  his  next  experi- 
ence of  the  war,  though  whether  he  commanded  the 
garrison  at  the  siege  of  B  rough  ton  Castle  is  a  moot 
point.  I  am  inclined  myself  to  think  that  "  Old 
Subtlety  "  was  there  in  person,  with  one  eye  fixed  on 
honour  and  the  other  on  the  family  valuables,  and 
that  he  had  something  to  say  to  the  signing  of  that 
surrender.  In  the  intervals  of  active  service  in  the 
field,  the  family  literary  instinct  moved  Nathaniel  to 
take  pen  in  hand.  With  the  shock  of  the  events  fresh 
upon  him,  he  wrote  his  True  and  Exact  Relation  of 
both  the  Battles  fought  by  His  Excellency  Robert 
Earl  of  Essex  and  his  Forces  against  the  Bloody 


342  MOATED  HOUSES 

Cavaliers,  the  one  of  the  2^rd  of  October  last  near 
Keynton,  the  other  at  Worcester.  The  strong  bias 
shown  in  the  title  stamps  Nathaniel  as  one  of  our  first 
war  correspondents,  and  by  Keynton,  Edgehill  is 
meant.  Keynton  was  perhaps  a  temporary  halting- 
place  in  that  Rupert  de'bdcle.  That  brilliant  person- 
age, the  Skobeleff  of  the  Civil  War,  was  Nathaniel 
Fiennes'  evil  genius,  and  he  was  destined  to  cross  his 
path  again  with  very  nearly  fatal  results.  The  test  of 
a  great  soldier  has  been  said  to  be  his  conduct  in 
defeat.  The  dispatch  of  Nathaniel  to  Bristol  in  1643 
seems  a  proof  of  the  maxim,  since  he  had  never 
ridden  across  a  field  of  victory  since  the  war  broke  out. 
Bristol,  however,  soon  had  proofs  of  his  military  alert- 
ness. Conspiracy  was  to  have  opened  the  city's  gates 
on  March  the  7th,  but  Fiennes  made  his  perception 
felt  three  hours  before  the  time  appointed  for  that 
formality,  and  Robert  Yeomans  and  George  Bourchier 
paid  the  extreme  penalty  for  being  spies  for  the 
cause  of  Charles.  But  before  another  month  was 
over,  the  new  Governor  of  Bristol  found  himself  with 
only  the  following  aids  for  the  defence  of  the  city  : — 

1.  Not  sufficient  men  to  man  the  walls. 

2.  No  money  to  pay  those  he  had. 

3.  No  officers  of  any  experience. 

4.  Unfinished  fortifications. 

A  fifth  reinforcement  of  inefficiency  took  the 
form  of  Prince  Rupert  thundering  at  the  gate.  A 
four  days'  cannonade  was  sufficient  to  pave  the  way 
for  an  assault,  and  on  the  26th  of  July  the  Cavaliers 
swarmed  into  the  breach,  breathing  oaths  and  pillage. 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  343 

A  prompting  which  his  enemies  imputed  to  lack  of 
courage,  and  those  who  knew  him  to  humanity, 
induced  Fiennes  to  save  the  city  from  sack  (a  difficult 
task,  one  would  have  thought,  since  the  Cavaliers  were 
already  in  the  place),  and  the  citizens  from  the  horrors 
of  street-fighting.  He  surrendered  the  town.  A 
court-martial  at  St.  Albans  in  the  following  September 
was  the  reward  for  this  weakness  or  error  of  judg- 
ment, and  on  the  23rd  of  the  month  Nathaniel's 
Christmas  greetings  took  the  form  of  a  sentence  of 
*  death. 

It  was  not  carried  into  effect.  The  man's  courage 
was  on  record,  and  probably  Cromwell  held  up  a 
hand  ;  but  a  trip  abroad  was  suggested  as  an  episode 
which  stopped  tongues  wagging  and  closed  a  military 
career.  The  year  before  King  Charles's  execution, 
Nathaniel  Fiennes  reappeared  in  public  life.  A 
peculiar  political  nostrum,  composed  of  a  colonel 
with  his  sword  drawn  and  a  list  of  forty  members  of 
the  majority  in  his  hand,  called  "  Pride's  Purge,"  for 
the  moment  excluded  Nathaniel  from  that  House  of 
Commons  in  which  he  had  only  just  taken  a  seat. 
Six  years  after,  his  star  had  risen  with  Cromwell's. 
He  was  made  a  member  of  his  Council,  Keeper  of 
the  Great  Seal :  finally  one  of  the  Committee  of  En- 
couragement in  that  supremely  dramatic  moment  when 
the  great  soldier,  and  the  usurper  greater  still,  was 
eagerly  stretching  out  and  half-heartedly  withdrawing 
a  hand,  not  clean  yet  from  the  blood  of  the  3Oth  of 
January,  but  itching  for  the  Crown. 

Cromwell's  death  was  the  signal  for  Nathaniel's 
final  retirement  into  private  life.  A  general  opinion 


344  MOATED  HOUSES 

that  it  was  the  religious  side  of  the  movement  which 
had  made  him  the  staunch  Cromwellian  that  he  was, 
saved  him  from  the  effects  of  that  Restoration  which 
he  neither  forwarded  nor  opposed.  Uninfluenced 
by  the  shining  paternal  example  of  time-serving  at 
the  moment  in  operation  outside  the  Broughton  Castle 
drawing-room  door,  this  stern  Republican  of  Milton's 
England  bowed  no  knee  to  Rimmon  or  to  Royalty. 
He  lived  out  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  the  seclusion  of 
a  Wiltshire  village,  and  was  buried  at  Newton  Toney 
in  the  December  of  1669.  To  the  last  he  remained 
on  terms  of  an  extreme  affection  with  his  brother 
John.  He  had  always  been  John's  hero. 

This  hero-worshipper  had  been  at  Bristol  with 
his  elder  brother,  and  had  violently  assaulted  one  of 
the  witnesses  who  had  dared  to  impugn  Nathaniel's 
courage.  John  indeed  was  an  even  more  typical 
Cromwellian  soldier  than  his  elder  brother,  and  his 
claim  to  the  title  was  finally  established  by  his  riding 
in  the  right  wing  of  the  Parliamentary  army  at 
Naseby,  under  the  immediate  command  of  Cromwell 
himself.  This  position  in  the  fighting  line  shows 
him  to  have  been  one  of  the  celebrated  Ironsides, 
who  fought  with  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon  on  that  day,  and  who  as  they  rode  through 
a  swollen  stream  on  to  the  battlefield  trusted  it  is 
true  in  God,  but  were  particularly  careful  to  keep 
their  powder  dry.  In  this  twofold  observance  John 
Fiennes  followed  to  the  letter  his  great  commander's 
field  order.  In  recognition  of  his  services  he  received 
the  following  testamur,  in  which,  while  praising  one 
of  them,  Cromwell  draws  with  his  own  hand  his  ideal 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  345 

Ironside.  Writing  of  John  Fiennes,  he  says  :  "His 
diligence  is  great.  And  this  I  must  testify,  that  I 
find  no  man  more  ready  to  all  services  than  himself. 
I  find  him  a  gentleman  of  that  fidelity  to  you,  and 
so  conscientious  that  he  would  all  his  troop  were  as 
civil  and  religious  as  any,  and  makes  it  great  part 
of  his  care  to  get  them  so." 

Here  we  have  a  picture  of  the  perfect 
Parliamentary  soldier  drawn  by  the  master-hand  who 
called  him  into  being.  A  cavalry  officer  requires  no 
higher  credentials  than  these. 

We  can  leave  John  Fiennes  with  these  honours 
thick  upon  him.  It  is  a  small  thing  after  this  that 
he  was  summoned  by  Cromwell  in  1657  to  his  House 
of  Lords,  or  that  he  married  Susannah,  daughter  of 
Thomas  Hobbes  of  Am  well  Magna  in  Hertfordshire, 
and  that  his  son  Lawrence,  by  this  marriage,  became 
fifth  Viscount  Say  and  Sele  in  1710. 

The  devious  and  dubious  political  dealings  of 
"Old  Subtlety"  and  the  martial  doings  of  his  two 
sons  seem  to  have  turned  this  note  on  Broughton 
Castle  into  a  mere  record  of  the  sustained  struggle 
of  its  owners  to  overthrow  Charles  the  First.  And 
yet,  if  Compton  Winyates  may  be  considered  as  a 
moated  house  essentially  Royalist,  the  claim  of 
Broughton  Castle  to  represent  the  austere  and 
opposite  interest  in  the  great  Civil  War  can  hardly 
be  too  much  insisted  upon.  In  the  very  aspect  of 
the  building  there  is  something  stony,  inflexible,  and 
forbidding.  Such  a  look  was  to  be  seen  every  day 
in  the  faces  of  those  contemporaries  who  ranted  at 
street  corners  in  huge  military  boots  with  long  tucks 


346  MOATED  HOUSES 

by  their  sides,  and  incoherently  denounced  a 
Monarchy  which  was  the  first  they  had  ever  lived 
under,  but  which  was  nevertheless,  according  to  them, 
to  be  rooted  up  and  utterly  destroyed  to  make  way 
for  a  Fifth.  The  practical  side  of  these  Fifth 
Monarchy  preachers  was  demonstrated  at  Naseby 
and  Marston  Moor.  Their  iron  personality  stamped 
itself  on  the  times ;  on  the  houses  they  lived  in  ;  on 
every  varying  phase  of  England's  social  life.  And  it 
is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  strong  suggestions  of 
their  characteristics  should  seem  reflected  from  the 
walls  of  a  house  which  reared  two  generations  of 
malcontents  in  those  subversive  views  of  which  it 
was  in  truth  a  hotbed.  If  so  much  may  be  said  of 
any  house,  the  history  of  Broughton  Castle  may 
claim  to  be  Parliamentarian. 

And  yet  side  by  side  with  this  stern  tendency, 
another  of  a  very  different  kind  imperceptibly  makes 
itself  felt,  before  which  the  austerities,  the  inflexi- 
bilities, and  the  groanings,  and  the  prayers,  and  the 
inspired  onslaughts  of  the  victorious  Saints,  take 
flight  and  fade  to  nothingness  under  the  magic 
glamour  of  Romance.  The  twilight  deepens  of  the 
world  of  dreams,  and  banishes  those  noisy  votaries  of 
liberty  and  disorder.  The  dead  Crusader's  gold  ring 
found  under  the  felled  elm  tree  hushes  the  designing 
creakings  of  "  Old  Subtlety's  "  square-toed  shoes  !  The 
thought  of  the  Hospitaller's  unrecorded  deeds  in  the 
Holy  Land  dim  the  story  of  Nathaniel  Fiennes' 
gallantry  at  Worcester,  and  his  brother  John's 
victorious  ride  at  Naseby  under  the  stern  eye  of  his 
great  commander-in-chief !  The  pathos  of  that 


BROUGHTON  CASTLE  347 

infinitely  distant  past  asserts  itself,  which  holds  in  a 
magic  keeping  the  secret  of  the  Knight  of  St.  John  : 
tempts  the  fancy  to  picture  the  train  of  chivalrous 
deeds  linked  with  the  posy  and  the  buried  ring  :  to 
ponder  the  possibilities  of  an  old-world  love-story 
whose  real  course  must  remain  for  ever  unknown  ! 


XXIII 
HEVER   CASTLE 

THE  touch  of  a  munificent  yet  tasteful  restora- 
tion has  transformed  Hever  Castle  within 
the  last  five  years.  The  historic  home  of  the 
Boleyns  has,  in  the  interval  mentioned,  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  a  millionaire.  To  this  much-to-be-envied 
class  money  is  naturally  nothing  ;  but  that  they  some- 
times fail  to  make  a  proper  use  of  it  is  a  question 
extremely  open  to  debate.  The  additions  which  have 
been  made  to  Hever,  however,  absolve  the  directing 
genius  from  any  such  slur.  A  moated  house  dating 
back  to  Tudor  days  may  be  too  small  for  a  wealthy 
man's  lavish  and  necessary  scope  of  entertainment. 
Our  ancestors  were  content  with  small  rooms ;  had 
no  aversion  to  low  ceilings;  and,  as  has  been  men- 
tioned before,  were  perfectly  careless  as  to  whether 
windows  could  be  opened  or  not,  since  they  habitually 
went  to  bed  with  the  birds  (as  some  defamers  say, 
to  save  the  suet),  and  as  habitually  rose  with  them 
and  rushed  out  into  the  open  air,  to  save  them- 
selves from  being  asphyxiated.  With  these  lessons 
from  the  past  before  him,  the  problem  confront- 
ing the  new  owner  of  Hever  Castle  was  how 

to    make    the    necessary   additions    for    accommoda- 

348 


HEVER    CASTLE 


HEVER  CASTLE  349 

tion    without    destroying    the    character   of   the   old 
house. 

With  the  assistance  of  a  sympathetic  architect,  the 
problem  has  been  most  satisfactorily  solved,  by  build- 
ing a  series  of  guest-houses  outside  the  moat  which 
washes  the  four  sides  of  the  old  house,  and  which,  to 
those  who  do  not  know  their  secret  use,  have  all  the 
appearance  of  representing  an  old  Tudor  village. 
Such  clusters  of  outbuildings  were  common  in  the 
days  when  moats  round  houses  were  necessary. 
The  retainers  of  the  lord  of  the  manor  lived  in  them, 
and  were  pleased  in  those  insecure  times  to  nestle 
under  the  shelter  of  the  great  house.  When  the 
waves  of  civil  war  or  the  menace  of  marauders  was 
signalled  by  the  ringing  of  the  moated  house's  alarm 
bell,  they  fled  into  that  fastness  as  one  man,  leaving 
whatever  agricultural  implement  they  may  have  had 
in  their  hands  at  the  moment,  and  when  the  draw- 
bridge had  been  raised  behind  them,  armed  them- 
selves with  cross-bow,  arquebus,  pitchers  of  boiling 
pitch,  or  whatever  other  amenities  of  contemporary 
social  intercourse  were  handy  or  opportune  for  the 
moment.  In  the  discharge  of  this  public  duty,  they 
often  saw  their  own  homes  on  the  other  side  of  the 
moat  go  up  in  flames.  But  they  remained  calm  in 
the  confident  knowledge  that  they  would  soon  be 
built  up  again. 

No  such  fate,  in  these  days  of  grace,  advance,  and 
a  well-regulated  proportion  of  county  constabulary,  is 
likely  to  befall  the  new  buildings  which  the  present 
owner  of  Hever  has  built  outside  his  moated  house, 
and  which  under  the  artistic  cover  of  a  small  Tudor 


350  MOATED  HOUSES 

village  conceal  what  are  really  a  set  of  bijou  residences 
for  the  reception  of  friends,  furnished  from  basement 
to  roof  with  a  munificence  which  never  errs  against  a 
correct  taste.  If  a  criticism  may  be  suggested  against 
so  admirable  an  attempt  to  bridge  the  difficulty  of 
keeping  the  character  of  an  old  moated  house,  while 
making  it  at  the  same  time  adaptable  for  the  needs  of 
an  enlarged  hospitality,  it  may  be  directed  against  the 
very  bridge  itself,  which  enables  the  guests  to  pass 
from  their  quarters  outside  the  moat  into  the  Castle 
itself.  This  bridge  seems  to  be  somewhat  of  a  blot  : 
though  no  doubt  it  is  a  comfort  on  windy  or  rainy 
nights,  since  it  is  covered.  But  people  who  have  the 
honour  of  visiting  such  a  house  as  Hever  should  not 
be  afraid  of  going  home  over  a  drawbridge.  The 
feat  would  be  in  keeping  however  wet  the  night 
might  be.  The  present  structure  somewhat  painfully 
recalls  the  covered  entrance  to  the  Earl's  Court  Ex- 
hibition. With  this  suggestion  all  criticism  of  the 
restorations  at  Hever  ends.  Nothing,  in  short,  could 
be  more  magnificent  or  in  finer  taste.  To  attain  this 
end  Europe  has  been  ransacked.  Italy,  France, 
Germany  have  had  to  yield  up  treasures,  in  the  way 
of  furniture,  to  a  taste  cultivated  to  the  extreme  of 
perception  and  armed  with  an  inexhaustible  purse. 
The  fifteenth-century  Burgundian  chair  in  the 
armoury,  to  quote  an  instance,  is  a  specimen  calcu- 
lated to  make  the  most  rigid  Christian  antiquary 
forget  the  Ninth  Commandment.  A  Charles  the 
Second  chair  in  the  library  is  sufficiently  perfect  to 
make  "  Old  Rowley "  in  person  rise  from  his  grave, 
and  seat  himself  in  it,  with  that  unstudied  ease  and 


HEVER  CASTLE 


35i 


elegance  which  was  his.  He  might  well  have  de- 
signed the  political  master-stroke  against  a  contuma- 
cious Parliament  from  such  a  point  of  vantage.  The 
specimens  of  Italian  furniture  are  extraordinarily  rich 
and  rare,  while  as  regards  the  "  Caqueteuse  Chair" 
nothing  more  need  be  said  than  that  Kings  have  in 
all  probability  listened  from  it  to  subjects'  grievances 
which  they  had  no  intention  whatever  of  remedying. 
Apart  from  all  these  priceless  and  artistic  additions  to 
Hever  Castle,  however,  probably  as  expensive  and 
certainly  the  one  most  directly  bearing  on  the  romance 
of  the  house  is  the  beautiful  restoration,  with  its 
Tudor  straight  walks  and  trellis-work,  of  Anne 
Boleyn's  Garden. 

For  the  memory  of  "that  brown  girl  with  the 
perthroat  and  extra  finger "  (according  to  Margaret 
More's  malicious  description)  must  always  haunt 
Hever  with  a  searching  and  a  singular  charm.  Not 
that  the  Castle  itself,  left  intact  as  to  its  outer  walls 
as  it  still  is,  can  fail  to  strike  the  fancy.  It  can  lay 
no  claim,  it  is  true,  to  that  secrecy  of  site  and  that 
sombreness  of  exterior  which  lends  to  places  like 
Ightham  and  Compton  Winyates  a  charm  and  a 
mystery  all  their  own ;  nor  does  it  possess  that  en- 
vironment of  well-timbered  and  undulating  park-land 
which  points  to  Groombridge  as  the  pleasantest  of 
possible  prisons  for  a  captive  poetic  Prince.  Apart 
from  its  recently  added  surroundings,  Hever  lies,  in 
comparison,  transparently  exposed.  Green  meadow- 
lands  of  the  Eden  lie  about  it,  lending  a  serene  air. 
There  is  no  suggestion  about  Hever  of  treasons, 
stratagems,  and  spoils.  It  looks,  and  more  than  ever 


352  MOATED  HOUSES 

now,  a  habitable  great  house  whose  life  was  and  is 
lived  cheerily ;  and  its  mass  of  buttressed  towers, 
embrasures,  square-headed  windows,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  admirably  constructed  suggestion  of  the  Tudor 
village  which  now  nestles  under  its  walls,  seem  only 
to  have  caught  from  time  the  impress  of  clear  and 
harmonious  colour.  Since  the  outer  walls  have  not 
needed  the  aid  of  the  restorer's  hand,  a  near  approach 
to  the  place  will  not  remove  this  impression.  Though 
it  is  embattled,  strongly  machicolated,  defended  by 
a  portcullis  and  the  invariable  thick  oaken  doors 
always  associated  with  places  of  the  sort,  and  some- 
times the  most  ancient  and  interesting  things  about 
them,  the  place  seems  redolent  of  a  rich  and  bygone 
hospitality  which  chance  and  wealth  have  recently 
so  fortunately  called  back  to  life.  Above  all,  the 
reconstructed  Tudor  garden  tells  the  story  of  the 
place  ;  still  seems  to  echo  romantic  hopes  destined 
to  be  fatal,  and  passionate  ambitions  doomed  to  bring 
beauty  to  dust  and  death  ;  perceptibly  whispers  the 
long  story  of  ambition,  passion,  hope  deferred,  and 
hope  triumphant,  which  here  once  agitated  the  heart 
of  Anne  Boleyn. 

For  she  must  always  remain  the  tutelary  goddess 
of  the  place.  And  if  this  old  house  which  was  once 
her  home  may  be  considered,  as  it  now  more  than 
ever  has  claim  to  be,  a  representative  specimen  of 
the  architecture  of  the  Middle  Ages,  so  may  she  with 
equal  reason  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  its  represent- 
ative heroines.  Subtle  and  enigmatic  siren  as  she 
should  be,  it  is  a  characteristic  trait  in  her  story  that 
doubt  should  exist  even  as  to  where  she  was  born. 


HEVER  CASTLE  353 

Some  name  Blickling  Hall  in  Norfolk,  in  those  days 
a  great  moated  house  like  Hever,  and  which  would 
have  been  included  in  these  papers  had  not  the 
original  house  been  pulled  down  by  a  purse-proud 
lawyer  and  the  moat  filled  up  by  his  unimaginative 
descendants.  Through  this  piece  of  hereditary 
turpitude,  a  fine  ghostly  legend  has  had  to  be  with- 
held. Rochford  Hall,  in  Essex,  is  by  others  pre- 
ferred as  Anne's  birthplace.  The  point  is  a  moot 
one,  and  may  be  left  in  that  half-lighted  atmosphere, 
as  of  some  world  fantastical,  through  which  so  many 
incidents  in  Anne  Boleyn's  earlier  story  move  like  the 
armies  of  dreams.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  at 
Hever  she  passed  most  of  her  girlish  days — days  in 
which  young  ladies  were  much  earlier  made  adepts 
in  embroidery,  dancing,  and  osillades  than  they  are 
at  present.  (But  perhaps  so  far  as  the  last  attainment 
is  concerned,  this  is  impossible.)  Meanwhile  it  is 
pleasant  to  picture  this  earlier  life.  There  was 
probably  little  in  it  to  wake  serious  feeling.  Sir 
Thomas  Boleyn,  like  most  gentlemen  in  those  merry 
days,  kept  open  house,  and  the  portcullis  and  the 
drawbridge  were,  it  is  likely  enough,  the  only  solemn 
features  of  his  Castle.  The  baying  of  hounds,  the 
jingle  of  hawks'  bells,  and  the  lowing  of  herds  would 
almost  constantly  enliven  the  outer  walls,  and  remind 
wayfarers  that  they  were  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
great  country  gentleman's  seat.  In  the  crowded  hall 
(now  decorated  with  a  most  splendid  fireplace,  and  a 
more  magnificent  screen)  Gothic  hospitality  reigned. 
In  the  days  of  the  Boleyns  it  would  have  been  rush- 
strewn  and  certainly  malodorous  but  for  the  sweet 
23 


354  MOATED  HOUSES 

herbs  that  were  scattered  at  stated  times  over  the 
rushes,  and  which  replied  to  the  tread  of  guests 
crowding  to  the  festal  board  by  yielding  up  their 
delicious  scent  In  a  later  reign  the  great  Bacon 
pronounced  that  no  garden  was  perfect  without  grass 
walks  planted  with  these  same  herbs,  which  would 
perform  the  same  perfumed  office  to  the  saunterer. 
In  contrast  to  this  drawback  to  the  floor  of  the 
banqueting  hall  as  it  stood  in  Anne  Boleyn's  time, 
two  or  three  rooms  reserved  for  the  lord  and  lady 
of  the  house  would  have  shown  a  considerable 
amount  of  elegance.  The  looms  of  Flanders  were 
already  beginning  to  be  busy  with  classic  subjects. 
Diana  descended  to  Endymion  on  the  arras :  the 
designs  of  Palladis  may  have  shown  the  loves  of 
Cupid  and  Psyche  on  octagon  screens ;  and  the 
melting  eyes  of  Anne  Boleyn  may  have  dwelt  with 
a  precocious  and  growing  perception  on  many  another 
romantic  transcript  from  a  moving  mythology.  As 
she  walked  the  long  gallery  (now  tastefully  furnished 
and  redecorated,  but  in  which  the  old  newel  stair  in 
the  bay  window  is  still  to  be  seen)  the  heraldic  em- 
blazonings  on  the  windows  would  have  told  her  the 
story  of  no  undistinguished  descent :  in  her  mother's 
right  the  four  coated  shields  of  Howard,  Brotherton, 
Warren,  and  Mowbray  :  in  her  father's  the  eight 
quarters  of  Hoo,  St.  Omer,  Malmains,  St.  Leger, 
Wallop,  and  Ormonde.  The  garden  on  the  other 
side  of  the  moat,  now  so  beautifully  brought  back  to 
Tudor  life,  listened  to  many  whispered  conclaves 
between  Anne  and  her  royal  and  completely  enslaved 
lover.  The  burly  form  of  Henry  the  Eighth  still 


&*. 


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HEVER  CASTLE 


ttfiVER  CASTLfi  35? 

seems  to  move  down  its  straight  walks,  and  the 
scarlet  and  gold  doublet  of  that  amorous  King  takes 
a  dimmer  hue  as  his  royal  form  passes  under  the 
shadow  cast  by  the  trellis-work. 

Such  were  some  of  the  features  of  the  home  from 
which  Anne  Boleyn,  when  still  quite  a  girl,  started 
for  her  first  sight  of  that  coloured  and  gorgeous 
world,  which  was  bursting  into  life  about  her.  She 
left  England  as  a  Maid  of  Honour  in  the  train  of 
Henry  the  Eighth's  sister,  and  was  present  at  the 
'marriage  of  that  Princess  with  the  French  King. 
For  some  years  after  death  had  dissolved  this  union, 
Anne  remained  at  the  French  Court,  principally  in 
attendance  on  that  melancholy  Queen  Claude,  who 
looked  with  such  an  austere  eye  on  the  pageants 
which  made  Francis  the  First's  Court  splendid.  The 
mistress's  view  of  these  vanities  was  not  the  maid's. 
Subsequent  events  suggest  that  the  young  English 
girl  drank  in  these  glories  greedily.  Pleasure-loving, 
impressionable,  she  must  have  lived  a  hundred  lives 
in  one,  in  that  brilliant  intoxicating  atmosphere,  must 
have  caught  the  flavour  of  its  gay  gallantries,  and 
modelled  herself  unconsciously  on  its  dangerous 
freedom  from  thought.  She  may  have  been  the 
Queen  of  Beauty  in  many  a  tournament.  It  is 
possible  that  her  brilliant  eyes  may  have  reflected 
those  festivities  with  which  the  French  King  enter- 
tained his  brother  of  England,  and  that  she  saw  the 
most  magnificent  spectacle  of  the  age,  and  her  own 
fate  at  the  same  moment,  when  Court  duties  drew 
her  to  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  A  tradition, 
as  pleasingly  vague  as  most  of  those  which  cling 


358  MOATED  HOUSES 

about  her  memory,  suggests  that  here  Henry  the 
Eighth  (amorous  in  spite  of  Froude)  first  saw  and 
loved.  Unlikelier  things  may  have  happened.  If 
Anne  was  present,  she  would  have  taken  care  to  be 
prominent ;  and  in  that  position  she  would  certainly 
have  attracted  the  royal  yet  roving  eye.  One  may 
at  all  events  be  pretty  certain  that  if  she  was  on  the 
spot,  no  such  untimely  ague  as  upset  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham's  calculations  would  have  kept  her  a 
prisoner  in  her  chamber  when 

"  Those  sons  of  glory,  those  two  lights  of  men, 
Met  in  the  vale  of  Andren." 

Be  this  as  it  may,  rumour  records  little  of  her  subse- 
quent doings  in  France,  and  history  nothing,  till  a  vague 
date  comes  doubtfully  to  the  rescue,  and  suggests  her 
transference  to  the  English  Court,  and  her  appointment 
as  Maid  of  Honour  to  Catharine  of  Arragon. 

Before  she  entered  upon  that  service  which  was 
to  make  an  episode  in  history,  it  would  be  natural  for 
her  to  stay  for  a  time  at  her  father's  house.  We  may 
picture  her  at  Hever,  therefore,  once  more,  making 
new  Court  dresses.  The  Tudor  green  and  white 
would  not  have  been  the  wear  in  France — in  spite 
of  the  recent  Entente  Cordiale.  As  she  sits  over 
that  official  embroidery  and  needlework  she  is  seen 
as  if  in  a  picture.  An  exquisitely  beautiful  woman  of 
the  world  (too  much  of  the  world  probably,  as  the 
censorious  had  already  begun  to  remark),  with  a  high 
colour,  rich  brown  hair  parted  down  the  middle,  hazel 
eyes  capable  of  every  expression,  now  melting,  now 
aflame,  and  a  figure  already  voluptuous  yet  perfectly 


HEVER  CASTLE  359 

moulded.  To  these  attractions  add  "a  lively  charm 
of  foreign  manner,"  and  there  is  a  reason  for  Kentish 
candour  being  startled,  and  a  King  of  England  in- 
flamed. It  is  not  difficult  to  see  raised  eyebrows  and 
pursed  lips  in  the  family  circle  at  Hever  as  the  old- 
fashioned  walls,  and  the  arras  which  had  listened  for 
years  to  the  humdrum  of  country  commonplace, 
re-echoed  startlingly  to  the  latest  vivacities  from 
France.  I  can  see  the  brilliant  young  Maid  of  Honour 
following  the  flight  of  her  story  with  arch  eyes,  and 
Sir  Thomas  blinking  like  an  owl  suddenly  awakened 
who  thinks  that  he  has  seen  mice,  and  his  lady  raising 
herself  in  her  chair  astonied,  and  the  family  priest 
uncertain  whether  to  smile  or  to  refrain. 

There  was  a  certain  gallant  gentleman,  however, 
who  lived  a  few  miles  away,  at  Allingham  Castle, 
Wyatt  by  name,  who  admired  this  brilliant  talk  not 
less  than  he  admired  the  brilliant  talker.  Tennyson 
has  described  this  personage  finely.  "  Sir  Thomas 
was  a  fine  courtier,"  says  his  son's  servant  William 
in  Queen  Mary — "Queen  Anne"  (Anne  Boleyn, 
that  is  to  say)  "  loved  him.  A  fine  courtier  of  the 
old  Court  Sir  Thomas."  To  which  the  son,  on  the 
eve  it  will  be  remembered  of  his  insurrection  against 
Queen  Mary,  replies — 

"Courtier  of  many  Courts,  he  loved  the  more 
His  own  grey  towers,  plain  life,  and  lettered  ease, 
To  read  and  rhyme  in  solitary  fields, 
The  lark  above,  the  nightingale  below, 
And  answer  them  in  song." 

This  gentleman  thus  described  had  seen  Anne 
Boleyn  at  the  French  Court.  To  see  her  and 


360  MOATED  HOUSES 

hear  her  was  to  admire.  And  he  no  doubt  rode 
over  to  Hever  pretty  often,  and  after  a  few  feints 
with  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn  on  wheat  and  cattle,  and 
with  the  lady  of  the  house  on  town  fashions  and  the 
newest  practice  in  preserves,  passed  into  that  Tudor 
garden  (now  so  beautifully  restored),  and  sitting  at  the 
feet  of  the  newly  returned  beauty  from  France,  gazed, 
listened,  and  was  blest. 

Here  in  his  own  quaint  language  is  a  very  detailed 
portrait  of  the  future  Queen  of  England,  as  she  must 
then  have  appeared: — 

"There  was  at  this  time  presented  to  the  eye  of 
the  Court  the  rare  and  admirable  bewtie  of  the  fresh 
and  yonge  Lady  Anne  Bolein,  to  be  attendichte  upon 
the  Queene.  In  this  noble  imp  the  graces  of  nature 
graced  by  gracious  educacion  seemed  even  at  first  to 
have  promised  bliss  unto  hereafter  times :  she  was 
taken  at  that  time  to  have  a  bewtie  not  so  whitly 
cleere  and  fresh,  above  all  we  may  esteeme,  which 
appeared  much  more  excellent  by  her  favour  passinge 
sweete  and  cheerful,  and  thes  both  also  increased  by 
her  noble  presence  of  shape  and  fasion,  representing 
both  mildness  and  majesty,  more  than  can  be  exprest. 
There  was  found  indeed  upon  the  side  of  her  naile 
upon  one  of  her  fingers  some  little  showe  of  a  naile, 
which  yet  was  so  small,  by  the  report  of  those  who  have 
seen  her,  as  the  workmaister  seemed  to  leave  it  an 
occasion  of  greater  grace  to  her  hand,  which  with  the 
tip  of  one  of  her  other  fingers,  might  be  and  usually 
was  hidden,  without  any  least  blemish  to  it.  Like- 
wise there  were  said  to  be  upon  certin  parts  of  her 
body  small  moles,  incident  to  the  clearest  complexions  ; 


HEVER  CASTLE  361 

and  certlnly  both  thes  were  none  other  than  might 
more  stain  their  writings  with  notes  of  malice,  that 
have  catch  at  such  light  moles  in  so  bright  beams  of 
bewtie,  than  in  any  part  shadow  it,  as  may  right  wel 
appeare  by  many  arguments,  but  chiefly  by  the  choice 
and  exquisite  judgments  of  many  brave  spirits  that 
were  esteemed  to  honor  the  honorable  parts  in  her, 
even  honored  of  envie  itself." 

These  passages  at  Hever  with  the  truest  and 
most  devoted  lover  she  ever  had,  must  have  recurred 
one  fancies  to  Anne  Boleyn's  mind  in  days  to  come, 
when  fortune  had  dowered  her  with  more  than  the 
dreams  of  avarice.  Into  the  world  of  Court  intrigue 
where  that  fortune  awaited  her,  with  half-averted  face, 
she  was  now  to  pass.  At  what  especial  time,  or  at 
what  especial  place  she  met  the  man,  "big  enough, 
and  like  to  become  too  big,  with  long  slits  of  eyes 
that  gaze  freely  on  all,  as  who  should  say  who  dare 
let  or  hinder  me,"  and  who  was  at  the  time  King  of 
England,  is,  as  we  have  said  before,  a  moot  point. 
Henry  may  or  may  not  have  seen  her  at  the  Field 
of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  But  it  is  certain  that  a 
meeting  would  be  the  immediate  and  inevitable  conse- 
quence upon  her  entering  upon  the  post  of  Catharine 
of  Arragon's  Maid  of  Honour,  and  the  King's 
infatuation  and  the  Queen's  jealousy  may  have  burst 
into  life  at  the  same  moment.  The  curious  defect  in 
one  of  Anne's  hands,  which  Margaret  More  with  fine 
malice  calls  "  an  extra  finger,"  and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt, 
with  chivalrous  circumlocution,  "a  slight  appearance 
of  an  extra  nail,"  was  evidently  considered  by  the 
injured  Queen  a  deformity  sufficiently  marked  to  excite 


362  MOATED  HOUSES 

a  royal  loathing.  With  the  amiable  intention  of 
bringing  this  defect  into  prominence,  Catharine  of 
Arragon  frequently  challenged  Anne  to  play  at  cards 
with  her  in  the  King's  presence  in  order  to  give  this 
already  deflecting  husband  an  opportunity  of  observ- . 
ing  a  freak  of  nature  which  appeared  to  her  ominous. 
Witchcraft,  omens,  signs,  and  tokens  were  rampant 
in  the  England  of  that  day.  Henry  no  doubt  saw 
but  remained  enthralled.  Something  more  meaning 
than  an  extra  nail  was  needed  to  break  the  rapidly 
growing  intimacy.  This  was  furnished  by  that  first 
and  real  love  affair  of  Anne  Boleyn  which  ended  in 
her  undoubted  affiance  to  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke 
of  Northumberland.  Whether,  as  has  been  supposed, 
Wolsey,  with  some  secret,  and  not  too  ecclesiastical 
intent,  had  been  the  moving  agent  in  throwing  Anne 
into  Henry's  way,  can  never  be  certainly  .known. 
But  at  this  crisis  he  suddenly  appeared  upon  the  scene, 
and  acted  in  so  masterful  and  peremptory  a  manner 
as  suggested  the  imminence  of  a  danger  to  deeply 
laid  plans.  The  betrothed  couple  were  separated 
with  almost  brutal  force.  Lord  Percy  was  sent  into 
banishment  in  the  North.  Anne  was  relieved  of  her 
post  as  Maid  of  Honour,  and  sent  in  a  sort  of  exile 
home  to  Hever. 

This  priestly  interference  in  all  probability  gave 
the  death-blow  to  a  real  lovers'  union.  Anne  at  all 
events  left  London  vowing  vengeance  on  Wolsey 
should  ever  the  opportunity  of  wreaking  it  come  to 
her  hands.  A  more  interesting  consideration  is 
raised  by  the  question  as  to  what  extent  the  banished 
Maid  of  Honour  had  seen  possibilities  in  the  King's 


HEVER  CASTLE  363 

obvious  infatuation,  and  as  to  whether  or  no  she  had 
now  made  up  her  mind  to  mould  those  possibilities 
to  her  own  ends.  And  here  the  point  is  reached 
where  those  who  believe  that  Anne  really  loved 
Percy,  and  those  who  believe  that  she  really  loved 
the  King,  come  into  an  ever  undeterminable  conflict. 
Who  indeed  can  decide  definitely  on  these  delicate 
issues,  in  a  love  episode  of  nearly  four  hundred  years 
ago !  I  myself  am  inclined  to  favour  the  Percy 
theory,  and  to  believe  that  the  daughter  of  the 
Kentish  Knight,  experienced  as  she  was  in  the 
intrigues  of  two  Courts,  and  baulked  on  the  threshold 
of  a  real  love,  saw  the  Royal  Opportunity  clearly 
offering  itself,  and  resolutely  made  up  her  mind  to 
grasp  power  as  a  substitute  for  passion.  If  this  was 
the  case,  how  dramatic  must  have  been  this  isolation 
at  Hever !  What  a  subject  for  some  of  our  later- 
day  analysts,  the  hopes,  the  despairs,  the  question- 
ings of  this  ambition  cut  off  from  its  bent !  What 
struggles  of  conflicting  interests  destined  to  change 
the  face  of  a  whole  epoch !  How  fiercely  this 
beautiful  girl's  ambitious  heart  must  have  beaten 
under  the  latest  velvets  of  Paris  or  London !  The 
long  gallery  must  have  resounded  over  and  over 
again  to  the  hurried  tread  of  hope  deferred.  Trim 
garden  walks  and  formal  trellis-work  must  have 
screened  many  an  hour's  despairing  questionings  as  to 
whether  the  royal  victim  of  her  beauty,  since  she  was 
separated  from  him,  would  ever  deign  to  come  and  see 
her.  The  green  muffled  hills  must  have  been  scanned 
feverishly  day  after  day  by  lustrous  eyes  for  that  royal 
and  heart-stricken  victim  riding  over  from  Eltham  ! 


364  MOATED  HOUSES 

And  then  one  day,  perhaps  when  hope  of  ever 
seeing  him  again  was  almost  dead,  he  arrived.  The 
sound  of  horns  blown  faintly  and  at  a  distance 
reached  the  Castle's  walls.  The  twilight  of  a 
summer's  day  may  have  closed  in.  The  surround- 
ing tracks  or  roads  were  notoriously  full  of  quag- 
mires. One  can  see  the  drawbridge  raised,  and  Sir 
Thomas's  stout  retainers  hurrying  out  with  torches 
and  no  too  even  strides  to  guide  and  welcome  the 
visitor  who  was  no  doubt  well  expected.  He  is  seen 
to  be  the  King.  "The  man  like  to  become  too  big, 
with  slits  of  eyes  that  gaze  freely  on  all,"  rides  into 
the  courtyard.  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn  in  an  amaze- 
ment if  not  honest,  at  all  events  well  feigned,  bends 
the  knee,  as  he  helps  him  to  dismount.  The  big 
man  mutters  some  frivolous  pretext.  He  is  well 
seen  under  the  torch-light  in  the  courtyard,  every 
detail  of  him — the  brow  betokening  sense  and 
frankness,  the  eyebrows  supercilious,  the  cheeks 
puffy,  the  gait  rolling  and  straddling,  the  speech 
abrupt.  He  looks  up  covertly  at  the  oriel  window 
where  that  brightness  hides  herself  who  has  lured 
this  royal  moth !  One  likes  to  think  that  Anne 
Boleyn  was  herself  peeping  from  that  very  beautiful 
restoration  which  the  present  owner  of  Hever  has 
called  "Her  Oratory."  Beauty's  prayers  had  been 
answered  at  all  events. 

It  is  said  that  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn  read  the 
King's  real  object  through  vague  excuses,  and 
humbly  remarked  that  his  daughter  Anne  was  con- 
fined to  her  room  with  a  bad  cold.  If  a  scandalous 
rumour  is  to  be  relied  upon  which  connects  the 


1-VkUSB 

tin 

ifS 


HEVER   CASTLE 


HEVER  CASTLE  367 

King's  name  with  Anne's  elder  sister,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  lady  of  this  Castle  herself,  the  paternal 
solicitude  veiling  itself  under  a  white  lie,  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at.  It,  however,  did  not  prove  to 
be  enduring.  Those  royal  horns  sounded  fre- 
quently enough  now  to  herald  the  royal  visitor. 
The  retainers  of  Hever  Castle,  realizing  how  the 
wind  blew,  and  alert  for  nobles,  hurried  impetuously 
out  with  torches  and  prostrations  on  the  first  sound 
of  the  august  summons.  And  the  beauty  of  the 
Castle  no  longer  kept  herself  veiled.  One  of  the 
most  memorable  love  episodes  in  history  now  began 
to  evolve  itself.  Ardent  whispers  were  heard  by 
these  walls  which  can  never  tell  their  story,  and  long 
hand-pressures  were  exchanged  in  that  long-neglected 
garden,  which  has  recently  been  so  beautifully  re- 
stored. For,  however  little  of  real  passion  may 
have  manifested  itself  in  Anne's  attitude,  literary 
evidence  exists  to  show  that  in  Henry's  there  was 
plenty.  In  spite  indeed  of  that  insensibility  to  female 
beauty,  which  a  late  historian  would  have  us  believe 
was  one  of  Henry's  most  marked  characteristics, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  the  early  stages  of 
this  courtship  the  infatuated  but  already  married 
King  made  proffers  of  love  in  no  honourable  fashion. 
A  reference  has  been  made  to  scandalous  rumours 
which  before  this  time  connected  Henry  the  Eighth's 
name  with  the  inmates  of  Hever  Castle.  With 
regard  to  Anne  Boleyn  herself,  chivalric  regard  for 
a  beauty  now  nearly  four  hundred  years  in  her  grave, 
would  suggest  that  maidenly  virtue  was  the  motive 
of  Anne's  indignant  reception  of  this  royal  faux-pas. 


368  MOATED  HOUSES 

The  verdict  of  after  events,  however,  proclaims 
pretty  clearly,  that  the  Maid  of  Honour,  by  this  time 
at  any  rate,  had  those  lustrous  eyes  of  hers  fixed 
on  the  Crown  Matrimonial.  Let  this,  however,  be 
urged  for  the  aspiring  Anne.  This  attitude  of  hers 
to  the  wooing  of  a  royal  suitor  (still  looked  upon  as 
one  of  the  finest  men  in  Europe),  furnishes  an  argu- 
ment, as  it  seems  to  me,  of  her  possible  innocence  of 
the  charges  in  after  years  pressed  against  her.  The 
conflicting  vagaries  of  woman's  nature  forbid  definite 
deductions.  Yet  it  seems  hardly  probable  that  one 
who  had  in  the  heyday  of  her  youth  resisted  the 
importunities  of  a  King,  would,  directly  her  ambition 
had  been  attained,  fall  a  victim  to  the  seductions  of 
Court  minstrels  and  stray  Gentlemen  at  Arms. 
Two  of  these  (Norris  and  Weston),  with  both  of 
whom  she  was  subsequently  accused,  were  constantly 
in  attendance  on  Henry  during  his  visits  to  Hever. 
Anne  must  have  frequently  seen  them  at  this  time. 
And  these  are  the  men  to  whose  attractions  she  is 
supposed  to  have  succumbed,  after  having  resisted 
those  of  the  King  on  whom  they  were  waiting.  Mr. 
Froude  would  seem  to  have  rested  a  good  deal  of 
his  conviction  of  Anne's  guilt  on  the  fact  that  she 
once  wished  that  she  had  something  good  for  supper  ; 
and  on  the  further  suggestion,  "  that  Cromwel, 
Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam  (the 
noblemen  who  tried  her)  were  not  the  sort  of  people 
to  be  accomplices  of  the  King's  in  perhaps  the  most 
revolting  murder  ever  committed."  Personally, 
however,  I  am  not  disposed  to  think  that  a  Maid  of 
Honour  who  had  been  accustomed  to  French  cooking 


HEVER  CASTLE  369 

must  necessarily  have  been  voluptuous  because  she 
once  told  a  future  Lord  Chamberlain  "that  she 
wished  she  had  some  of  his  good  meats,  as  carps, 
shrimps,  and  others."  And  as  to  the  unimpeachable 
integrity  of  her  Judges,  I  cannot  forget  that  their 
judgment  was  given  in  days  when  the  axe  streamed 
with  blood  on  Tower  Hill,  and  noble  heads  leapt  at 
the  least  sign  of  a  thwarted  tyrant's  bidding.  It 
may  be  true  enough  ''that  scarcely  among  the  picked 
scoundrels  of  Newgate  could  men  be  found  for  such 
work,"  but  the  Cromwells,  Norfolks,  Suffolks,  and 
Fitzwilliams  of  that  day  were  not  all  Thomas  Mores 
— nor  could  they  for  a  moment  pretend  to  approach 
his  integrity.  And  what  sort  of  a  tainted  witness 
would  Lady  Rochford  be  called  in  these  days  who 
was  the  prime  witness  in  the  prosecution  ?  I  believe 
that  a  case  might  still  be  made  out  for  Anne  Boleyn. 
But  whatever  may  be  the  truth  as  to  her  subse- 
quent guilt  or  innocence,  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  these 
Hever  days  (and  it  is  with  them  that  I  am  concerned) 
of  the  reality  of  Henry's  passion.  Its  sincerity  pro- 
claims itself  from  the  crumpled  and  time-stained 
surfaces  of  a  series  of  letters  which  now  lie  in  the 
galleries  of  the  Vatican,  but  which  were  many  of  them 
delivered  at  the  drawbridge  of  this  finely  restored 
moated  house  by  fagged  messengers  wearing  the 
royal  livery.  They  were  glad  to  lean  for  rest  against 
the  steaming  horses  which  had  brought  them  at  break- 
neck speed  from  London.  How  eagerly  these  time- 
worn  memorials  of  the  enchanted  Prince  must  have 
been  awaited  in  those  far-off  days  by  the  beauty  of 
the  Castle !  How  impetuously  slender  fingers  must 
24 


3;o  MOATED  HOUSES 

have  entwined  the  enfolding  silk  (tied  no  doubt  in  a 
True  Lovers'  Knot),  and  carelessly  broken  open  the 
ever  accompanying  present !  It  is  worth  while  to 
dwell  for  a  moment  on  one  of  these  letters,  sole 
records  as  they  are  of  the  love  passages  that  make 
Hever  storied.  With  one  or  two  exceptions,  which 
point  conclusively  to  the  coarseness  of  the  age,  they 
are  agreeably  free  from  indecencies.  The  passion 
which  inspired  them  peeps  out  of  many  a  phrase,  and 
now  and  again  informs  the  quaint  diction  of  the  time 
with  a  fervour  which  reaches  to  eloquence. 

"  My  Mistress  and  friend,"  this  royal  lover  writes, 
"  I  and  my  heart  put  ourselves  into  your  hands, 
begging  you  to  recommend  us  to  your  favour,  and 
not  to  let  absence  lessen  your  affection  to  us.  For 
it  were  a  great  pity  to  increase  our  pain,  which 
absence  alone  does  sufficiently,  and  more  than  I  could 
ever  have  thought ;  bringing  to  my  mind  a  point  of 
Astronomy,  which  is  that  the  further  the  Mores  are 
from  us  the  further  too  is  the  Sun,  and  yet  his  heat  is 
the  more  scorching."  [This  passage  is  very  obscure, 
and  has  much  troubled  commentators.  Perhaps  for 
"  Mores  "  Poles  should  be  read.  Perhaps  the  passage 
had  better  be  left  in  its  original  obscurity.]  "  So," 
the  letter  goes  on,  "it  is  with  our  love  :  we  are  at  a 
distance  from  one  another,  and  yet  it  keeps  its 
fervency,  at  least  on  my  side.  I  hope  the  like  on 
your  part,  assuring  you  that  the  uneasiness  of  absence 
is  already  too  severe  for  me ;  and  when  I  think  of 
the  continuance  of  that  which  I  must  of  necessity 
suffer,  it  would  seem  intolerable  to  me,  were  it  not 
for  this  firm  hope  I  have  of  your  unchangeable  affec- 


HEVER  CASTLE  37 1 

tion  to  me  :  and  now,  to  put  you  sometimes  in  mind 
of  it,  and  seeing  I  cannot  be  present  in  person  with 
you,  I  send  you  the  nearest  thing  to  that  possible  : 
that  is  my  picture  set  in  bracelets  with  the  whole 
device  which  you  know  already,  wishing  myself  in 
their  place  when  it  shall  please  you.  This  from  the 
hand  of  your  servant  and  friend.  H.  Rex." 

In  what  particular  place  that  "omen  coming  on" 
which  this  letter  foreshadows,  culminated  in  a  royal 
betrothal,  is  not  certainly  known.  History  cannot 
help  us  here.  Some  dimly  lighted  alcove  of  Wolsey's 
palace  at  York  House  may  have  heard  kingly  and 
whispered  vows  offered  and  accepted.  It  is  likely, 
however,  that  the  august  event  so  long  watched  for, 
took  place  at  Hever  Castle.  And  I  like  to  think 
that  it  took  place  at  Hever.  And  if  this  was  so,  at 
Hever  also  took  place  a  certain  historic  game  of  bowls, 
at  which  this  kingly  matrimonial  intent  was  first 
made  manifest,  and  of  which  a  knightly  authority  we 
have  already  quoted  has  left  us  a  vivid  recital.  To 
leave  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt's  quaint  form  of  speech  be- 
hind us  for  a  moment  (since  an  example  has  already 
been  given  of  it),  it  would  seem  that  the  Knight 
in  question,  while  one  day  entertaining  Anne 
Boleyn  with  the  latest  Court  news,  mingled  with 
French  gallantries  and  the  latest  county  scandal  in 
Kent,  proceeded  from  spoken  compliment  to  a  more 
demonstrative  token  of  his  regard.  He  niched  a 
small  jewel  which  hung  by  a  lace  out  of  the  beauty's 
pocket — with  a  view  no  doubt  of  its  becoming 
heraldically  cognizant  of  the  beating  of  his  own 
respectfully  admiring  heart.  The  lady,  who  had  not 


372  MOATED  HOUSES 

parted  with  her  property  without  some  show  of  a 
struggle,  now  (and  no  doubt  to  the  Knight's  chagrin) 
abandoned  all  efforts  at  recovery.  And  so  the 
incident  might  have  passed.  But  it  happened  that 
there  was  somebody  else  at  Hever  at  the  moment  who 
was  keeping  a  watchful  eye  upon  the  Knight.  None 
other  in  fact  than  that  "  big  man  like  to  become  too 
big,  with  slits  of  eyes  that  gazed  freely  on  all," — 
Henry  the  Eighth  himself,  to  be  plain.  And  the  first 
motions  of  that  jealousy  which  was  afterwards  to 
work  to  such  tragic  issues  prompted  him  to  immedi- 
ate action.  The  royal  lover,  as  Anne's  accepted  suitor, 
took  a  ring  from  her  hand  and  wore  it  upon  his  little 
finger.  I  seem  to  see  this  accepted  and  royal  suitor 
leaving  the  triumphing  beauty  (dazed  with  this  final 
realization  of  a  long  cherished  dream),  to  pace  the 
long  gallery,  with  the  steps  no  longer  of  hope  deferred, 
and  betaking  himself  with  gait  rolling  and  straddl- 
ing, but  with  heart  also  beating  high,  to  the  Castle's 
bowling-green.  Here,  Wyatt,  the  man  he  had  fears 
of,  and  two  or  three  other  gentlemen,  were  engaged  in 
a  friendly  game,  and  Henry  (in  Wyatt's  own  words 
"more  than  ordinarrie  pleasantly  disposed  ")  unbent 
himself  to  share  the  sport,  and  also  at  the  same  time 
to  give  Wyatt  a  reminder.  This  he  did  by  beginning 
to  cheat  right  royally  at  the  royal  game  of  bowls, 
lyingly  yet  at  the  same  time  allegorically  alleging  a 
cast  to  be  his  when  it  plainly  appeared  to  be  not  so. 
So  clearly  indeed  was  the  cast  not  the  King's  that 
even  those  fifteenth-century  courtiers  felt  compelled 
to  say  (with  His  Grace's  leave)  that  he  was  playing 
it  up  on  them.  But  Henry's  opportunity  was  now 


HEVER  CASTLE 


373 


come.  Pointing  with  the  royal  finger  on  which 
gleamed  Annie  Boleyn's  ring  of  betrothal,  he  said  to 
Wyatt,  "  I  tell  thee  it  is  mine."  To  use  an  expres- 
sion of  a  later  age  of  culture,  Wyatt  now  "  tumbled." 
In  plain  words,  he  cast  his  eyes  upon  the  King's  finger, 
and  saw  that  by  "  it"  the  King  meant  not  the  cast 
but  the  lady.  The  sight  may  have  given  him  pause. 
But  the  man  who  in  Henry's  own  words  could  tame 
lions  was  not  easily  silenced.  After  looking  at  the 
ring  with  much  attention,  he  tuned  himself  to  Henry's 
own  allegory,  and  remarking,  "If  it  may  like  your 
Majesty  to  give  me  leave  to  measure  it,  I  hope  it  will 
be  mine,"  drew  from  his  neck  the  lace  with  Anne 
Boleyn's  jewel  pendant,  and  stooped  to  measure 
the  disputed  cast.  It  was  now  the  King's  turn  to 
stare,  and  also  to  spurn  away  the  bowl,  remarking,  or 
probably  roaring,  "It  may  be  so,  but  then  I  am  de- 
ceived," and  so  broke  up  the  game.  This  story,  which 
I  have  dwelt  upon  because  it  very  likely  foreshadows 
future  trifling  and  misrepresented  indiscretions  which 
proved  fatal  to  Anne  herself,  may  be  rounded  in 
Wyatt's  own  words.  "This  thing  thus  carried,"  he 
writes,  "  was  not  perceived  of  many,  but  of  some  few 
it  was.  Now  the  King  resortinge  to  his  chamber, 
showing  some  resentment  in  his  countenance,  found 
means  to  break  the  matter  to  the  lady,  who  with 
good  and  evident  proofe  how  the  Knight  came  by  the 
jewel,  satisfied  the  King  so  effectually,  that  this 
more  confirmed  the  King's  opinion  of  her  truth  and 
virtue,  than  himself  at  the  first  could  have  expected." 
Whether  this  trifling  episode  which  still  might  have 
ended  seriously,  occurred  at  Hever  Castle  or  not,  is, 


374  MOATED  HOUSES 

as  I  have  said  before,  uncertain.  But  no  uncertainty 
exists  as  to  its  having  brought  the  Maid  of  Honour's 
matrimonial  ambitions  to  a  definite  head,  and  crowned 
that  brilliant  destiny  which  had  here  found  its  rustic 
starting-point  and  its  golden  goal.  From  this  point 
onwards,  so  far  as  documents  can  tell  us,  Anne 
Boleyn's  practical  contact  with  Hever  ceased.  There 
is  a  suggestion  indeed  in  one  of  the  King's  undated 
letters  (written  at  a  time  when  that  sixteenth-century 
Influenza  known  as  the  Sweating  Sickness  was  abroad 
in  the  land)  which  prescribes  native  air  as  a  possible 
preventative  against  the  pestilence ;  and  by  native 
air  the  breezes  which  blow  about  the  gables  of  Hever 
may  be  pointed  at.  Probability,  however,  which  I 
have  already  fully  strained,  seems  to  forbid  the  sup- 
position that  the  brilliant  girl  who  has  made  this  fine 
moated  house  immortal  by  the  passages  of  a  romantic 
love-story,  ever  set  foot  in  it  as  an  English  Queen. 
Some  such  precursors  of  the  present  fine  restoration 
would  have  heralded  that  visit.  No  such  record  of 
royal  refurbishing  exists. 

Yet,  if  indeed  Anne  Boleyn  never  again  rested  the 
eye  of  the  flesh  on  this  scene  of  her  girlhood  and  its 
dazzling  accomplishment,  I  like  to  believe  that  mind- 
pictures  of  the  old  home  in  Kent  were  often  present 
to  that  finer  vision  of  the  spirit  at  every  pause  of  that 
strange  life-experience  as  it  moved  inflexibly  through 
pomp  and  pageant  to  the  goal  assigned — to  the 
Headsman  from  Calais,  and  the  quiet  green  within 
the  Tower.  Here  surely,  at  this  supreme  goal,  the 
discrowned  and  dishonoured  beauty's  mind  went  back. 
That  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life  may  have  for  the 


HEVER  CASTLE  375 

moment  drowned  the  voices  of  earlier  days.  Hever 
with  its  green  fields  and  sunlit  towers  may  not  have 
crossed  the  young  Queen's  fancy  when  amidst  the 
roar  of  acclaiming  London,  through  streets  tapestried 
with  cloth  of  gold  and  past  conduits  running  wine, 
she  was  borne  to  Coronation,  a  visible  embodiment  of 
all  that  was  most  lovely  and  idolized  in  the  land  ;  or 
when  the  course  of  splendid  banquets  and  the  pauses 
of  a  nation's  holiday  were  startled  by  the  carronades 
which  proclaimed  the  birth  of  Elizabeth ;  or  when  at 
the  conclusion  of  a  royal  tournament,  and  throned 
'as  Queen  of  Beauty,  she  gave  the  prize  to  gallants 
whose  admiration  was  presently  to  undo  her !  In 
moments  such  as  these  the  link  with  which  I  like  to 
fancy  Anne  Boleyn  and  Hever  indissolubly  joined 
may  have  for  the  time  being  been  severed,  the  visions 
of  the  home  in  Kent  blurred,  its  memory  grown  faint  as 
that  of  some  friend's  face  seen  long  since  and  half 
forgotten.  But  it  would  not  have  been  so  in  the  end. 
When  that  brilliant  masque  of  life  had  been  played 
out,  when  treachery  or  frailty  had  done  their  worst, 
and  the  grim  walls  of  the  Tower  had  closed  for  ever 
on  earthly  hope  :  when  in  the  very  room  in  which  she 
had  slept  before  her  coronation,  she  sat  down,  aban- 
doned of  the  world,  to  write  to  Henry  the  Eighth  perhaps 
the  most  beautiful  and  pathetic  letter  in  the  language  ; 
on  that  April  morning,  even  when  she  passed  across 
the  Tower  Green  to  the  imminent  and  visible  end,  and 
in  one  confused  impression  of  the  scaffold,  saw  the 
daisies  springing  to  life,  the  Headsman  from  Calais 
masked  and  immobile,  leaning  on  his  sword,  the 
cannoneer  with  linstock  smoking  standing  by  the  gun 


376  MOATED  HOUSES 

which  was  to  bellow  to  a  listening  husband  the  brutal 
signal  that  his  faithlessness  was  free  : — in  such  supreme 
moments,  and  in  that  wide  and  instantaneous  vision 
of  the  dying,  I  like  to  think  that  the  Past  reappeared 
to  Anne  Boleyn,  fragrant  with  memories  of  the  old 
Hever  home  ;  to  think  that  she  saw  in  the  spirit  and 
for  the  last  time  the  quaint  courtyard  ;  the  broad  and 
brimming  moat ;  the  arboured  garden  ;  the  warder  on 
the  watch-tower  with  gauntleted  hand  to  brow,  a 
motionless  figure  relieved  against  the  sky  line,  and 
alert  for  the  royal  visitor ;  the  sleepy  streams  and 
green  pastures  of  the  Eden  shining  in  the  setting  sun 
Fantastic  fancies  !  on  which  the  same  sun  sets  in 
pomp  and  pageantry,  clothing  the  old  Castle's  walls 
with  something  of  a  visionary  splendour.  A  homeward- 
bound  ploughboy  whistles  as  cheerily  as  his  ancestor 
may  have  done  on  the  day  of  Wolsey's  death.  Magic 
breathes  in  the  intense  stillness  of  the  evening  air. 
And  everywhere,  haunting  castle  and  garden  like  some 
faint  perfume  of  the  days  long  dead,  everywhere 
moves  a  fugitive  and  elusive  form,  never  fully  seen, 
leaving  but  a  fantastic  impression  of  jewelled  coif  and 
perfumed  velvet,  and  soft  eyes  that  shine  alluringly, 
and  the  gracious  rustle  of  woman's  dress,  and  the 
faint  echo  of  ghostly  and  departing  footsteps.  It  is 
"the  brown  girl  with  the  perthroat  and  the  extra 
finger."  It  is  the  incarnation  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
And  it  is  to  the  infinite  credit  and  taste  of  the  present 
owner  of  Hever  that  such  memories  and  impressions 
of  the  Past  still  cling  about  an  old  house  which  has 
undergone  a  restoration  as  scholarly  as  it  is  complete. 


XXIV 
GROOMBRIDGE 


THE  date  of  Charles  the  Second's  accession  to 
the  throne  is  carved  over  the  entrance  to 
Groombridge,  but  the  story  of  this  moated 
house  and  some  remains  of  its  building  are  the 
heritage  of  an  earlier  foundation.  The  site  is  one 
of  extreme  and  almost  sylvan  beauty.  Undulating 
Park-lands,  having  much  of  the  characteristics  in 
them  of  a  Chace,  lie  round  it.  Fine  trees  in  summer 
cast  an  antique  shade.  The  moat  which  encircles  it, 
flows  more  freely  than  in  some  places  of  the  kind, 
and  wards  from  a  noisy  world  not  only  the  house 
itself  but  the  pleasant  expanses  of  an  old-world 
garden  and  the  smooth  area  of  well-trimmed  lawns. 
An  atmosphere  of  poetry  breathes  from  surroundings 
which  have  inspired  at  different  periods  of  history  two 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  house.  Charles  Duke  of 
Orleans  courted  the  Muse  here  in  the  days  of  Agin- 
court,  and  must  have  found  the  hours  of  imprisonment 
made  lighter  bv  the  quiet  and  the  serenity  of  the  spot. 


The  lapse  of  -aae-  hundred  and  6%:  years  may  have 
seen    Edmund  Waller   the    poet   of  the    Parliament 


377 


378  MOATED  HOUSES 

pacing  garden  and  park-lands  in  one  of  those 
meditative  rambles  which  gave  birth  to  his  lyrical 
outbursts.  Groombridge  may  have  given  "  Go  lovely 
Rose  "  to  a  grateful  world. 

The  coming  of  the  Muses  to  the  place  was 
nevertheless  heralded,  not  by  Apollo,  "leading  his 
choir  the  Nine,"  but  by  "  Bellona  lapp'd  in  proof." 
For  in  plain  words  the  owner  of  Groombridge,  who 
brought  poetry  into  his  house,  found  that  richest  gift 
of  the  Gods,  not  on  the  slopes  of  an  imaginary 
Parnassus,  but  on  a  certain  level  and  narrow  tract  of 
marsh-land  which  borders  the  course  of  the  Somme. 
The  chill  evening  of  a  rainy  day  found  Richard 
Waller,  then  lord  of  Groombridge,  searching  among 
the  bodies  of  eleven  thousand  dead  Frenchmen  on 
the  field  of  Agincourt.  The  searcher  who,  in  battered 
and  bloodstained  armour,  and  with  torch  in  hand, 
was  thus  examining  the  leavings  of  that  tremendous 
day,  had  borne  himself  throughout  it  with  conspicuous 
gallantry.  Under  his  calm,  and  immediate  direction, 
many  a  Sussex  and  Kentish  archer  had  let  fly  "  those 
crooked  sticks  and  grey  goose  wings "  which  had 
decimated  with  their  fatal  flight  the  chosen  chivalry 
of  France.  But  as  the  fighting  was  over,  and  more 
than  a  hundred  Princes  and  great  lords  lay  dead 
upon  the  ground  which  he  was  examining  so  curiously, 
the  pardonable  suspicion  may  be  suggested  that 
Richard  Waller  was,  what  is  classically  termed  in 
these  days,  on  "the  make."  In  plain  words,  he  had 
got  glory  and  was  looking  for  loot.  He  found  it  in 
the  almost  inanimate  person  of  a  poetic  Prince  lying 
half-crushed  under  a  great  heap  of  dead.  Charles, 


GROOMBRIDGE  379 

Duke  of  Orleans,  as  soon  as  some  suggestions  of 
breath  was  restored  to  his  body,  was  committed  into 
the  custody  of  his  captor. 

The  lyrical  outputs  of  this  royal  prisoner  may  be 
read  in  the  record  offices  of  two  countries,  and  in 
extremely  quaint  old  French.  They  bear  few  traces 
of  an  imprisonment,  which  probably  took  more  the 
form  of  a  respectful  surveillance  under  parole.  Indeed 
the  fact  that  custodian  and  guarded  guest  were  on 
another  footing  than  that  of  gaoler  and  ward,  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans  gave 
Richard  Waller  the  money  with  which  to  make 
additions  to  his  moated  house.  The  new  Groom- 
bridge  which  rose  under  these  agreeably  generous 
conditions  had,  we  may  be  sure,  not  many  of  the 
features  of  a  prison  about  it ;  though,  unfortunately, 
little  of  this  foundation  is  now  to  be  seen.  Nor  is  a 
further  example  of  the  captive  Prince's  architectural 
way  of  showing  that  he  was  well  treated  left  for  the 
admiration  of  posterity,  since  it  was  destroyed  by 
lightning  in  1701.  Here  follow  the  facts  which 
led  up  to  this  catastrophe.  Not  content  with  pre- 
senting Richard  Waller  with  a  new  house,  the  captive 
Duke  of  Orleans  built  the  inhabitants  of  the  neigh- 
bouring village  of  Speldhurst  a  new  Church,  and  no 
doubt  regularly  attended  mass  there  on  Sundays  and 
saints'  days,  to  the  admiration  and  wonder  of  rustics 
for  miles  round.  The  memory  of  Agincourt  it  must 
be  remembered  was  then  fresh  in  people's  minds. 
The  clefting  of  the  crown  on  the  English  King's 
helmet  by  the  sword  of  Alen^on  was  a  nightly  episode 
of  fireside  talk  at  every  ale-house  in  the  neighbourhood. 


38o  MOATED  HOUSES 

A  captive  Prince  taken  on  that  glorious  field,  and 
now  sitting  pensively  in  the  pew  of  a  village  church, 
was  a  sight  not  to  be  seen  every  day  in  Kent.  The 
priest  of  Speldhurst  had  no  cause  we  may  be  sure  to 
deplore  the  sparseness  of  his  congregations.  "  Stand- 
ing room  only "  would  have  been  the  order  of  the 
day,  and  the  very  aisles  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans'  new 
church  were  no  doubt  crowded.  His  arms,  carved  on 
a  stone  set  over  the  new  church  door,  is  the  only  relic 
left  of  this  ecclesiastical  generosity. 

His  keeper  and  friend,  meanwhile,  left  his  prisoner 
to  poetry  and  his  own  devices,  and  sought  fresh  fields 
and  pastures  new  ;  but  fields  where  glory  other  than 
poetic  was  to  be  reaped,  and  pastures  which,  by  the 
help  of  a  strictly  martial  tending,  came  to  a  strictly 
military  harvest.  The  man  who  had  seen  Agincourt 
and  taken  a  Prince  prisoner  was  always  ready  for  a 
fight.  The  year  1424  therefore  saw  Richard  Waller 
riding  across  the  bridge  over  the  Groombridge  moat 
with  his  veteran  band  of  retainers.  Many  of  them 
would  still  bear  the  scars  of  the  great  battle,  and 
France  was  again  to  make  acquaintance  with  their 
iron  personalities,  and  their  perfected  art  of  letting  fly 
a  goose's  shaft  from  a  taught  bow-string.  The  vacil- 
lating Henry  the  Sixth  had  come  to  the  throne  two 
years  before,  at  the  mature  age  of  nine  months,  but 
the  spirit  of  his  warlike  father  still  inspired  England's 
armies.  Waller  and  his  Groombridge  contingent 
fought  under  the  banner  of  the  great  Duke  of  Bedford, 
and  the  tale  of  Agincourt  was  repeated  at  Vermeuil. 
Once  more  the  attack  came  from  the  French.  Once 
more  it  resulted  in  half  the  flower  of  France's  chivalry 


GROOMBRIDGE  381 

strewing  the  ground.  A  nine  or  ten  years'  repose  at 
Groombridge  followed  this  last  active  feat,  during 
which  Richard  relieved  the  tedium  of  looking  at  the 
moat  round  his  house  and  listening  to  his  prisoner's 
talk  (of  which  he  most  probably  understood  nothing) 
by  performing  in  a  properly  rigid  way  the  dual  duties 
of  Sheriff  for  Sussex  and  Surrey.  Kent,  as  being 
the  seat  of  his  own  private  and  moated  residence,  one 
imagines,  might  have  been  thrown  in,  without 
affecting  the  calm  of  this  Plantagenet  Two  years 
after,  however,  another  office  was  put  upon  Richard 
Waller's  always  willing  shoulders.  He  had  a  new 
prisoner  to  guard,  or  rather  to  entertain,  at  Groom- 
bridge,  as  a  fifteenth-century  paying  guest.  This 
blessing  in  disguise  took  the  form  of  the  Count  of 
Angouleme,  the  Duke  of  Orleans'  brother. 

The  surveillance  of  two  princes  of  the  French 
blood  royal  would  have  been  sufficient  honour  and 
pastime  for  most  soldiers,  who  had  survived  the 
experience  of  two  tremendous  stricken  fields,  and  who 
had  a  country  house  to  rest  himself  in  after  such 
labours,  whose  site  and  surroundings  are  still  a  source 
of  delight  to  a  sixth  generation.  But  Richard  Waller 
was  of  a  temperament  over  which  ambition,  or  that 
restlessness  which  is  so  often  mistaken  for  it,  held 
complete  control.  In  his  moated  Kentish  home  he 
pined  for  the  shock  of  events,  and  not  being  able 
to  taste  them  at  the  moment  in  the  tented  field,  he 
went  to  look  for  them  at  Court.  The  move  brought 
him  into  ominous  company.  For,  though  his  first 
duty  in  the  employ  of  a  new  master  was  an  expedition 
to  France  to  sue  for  peace,  he  went  on  this  always 


382  MOATED  HOUSES 

desirable,  and  for  the  England  of  that  day,  extremely 
necessary  mission  as  Master  of  the  Household  to 
the  notorious  Cardinal  Beaufort.  Whether  Richard 
Waller's  intimacy  with  his  sinister  master  made  him 
a  spectator  of  that  dreadful  death-bed  scene  which 
Shakespeare  set  to  words  which  will  always  create  a 
shudder,  is  uncertain.  But  as  the  Cardinal  made  him 
one  of  his  executors  in  his  will  of  the  2oth  January, 
he  probably  was.  As  a  consequence,  he  would 
have  witnessed,  and  with  the  same  immovability 
which  he  had  shown  at  Agincourt  and  at  Vermeuil, 
the  despairing  efforts  of  a  murderous  soul  to  set  itself 
free : — would  have  heard  the  frenzied  cries  of  the 
dying  man  to  comb  down  the  hair  of  the  spectre  that 
confronted  him  in  his  death  agony ;  and  the  dying 
Cardinal's  screams  for  drink,  or,  for  the  poison  that 
he  had  bought  of  the  apothecary.  Still  unmoved, 
Richard  would  have  seen  the  passage  of  that  dark 
soul,  and  the  grin  fixed  on  his  lips  by  the  final  death 
pang. 

It  may  have  been  a  fortunate  thing  for  Richard 
Waller  that  his  iron  nerves  had  been  additionally 
strengthened  to  endure  the  strain  of  this  experience, 
by  some  further  preliminary  campaigning  in  France. 
During  the  years  1442-3  he  served  under  Sir  John 
Fastolf.  This  celebrated  soldier  was  also  a  complete 
character  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  word,  and 
as  he  called  the  owner  of  Groombridge  "his  right 
well  beloved  brother,"  a  sketch  may  be  given  of  him 
in  immediate  connection  with  the  house.  In  the 
intervals  of  campaigning  he  would  have  been  a  visitor 
here.  Sir  John  then,  when  he  laid  his  armour  aside, 


GROOMBRIDGE   HALL 


GROOMBRtDGE 

distinguished  himself  by  the  state  and  magnificence 
with  which  he  invested  the  duties,  the  labours  and 
the  pleasures  of  the  life  of  a  country  Squire.  He 
had  built  himself  a  great  house  at  Caister  near 
Yarmouth,  and  some  episodes  of  his  tenancy,  and  the 
griefs  and  worries  that  befell  him,  may  be  read  with 
a  smile  in  the  pages  of  the  Paston  Letters. 

In  the  year  1450,  when  Jack  Cade  was  putting  the 
principles  of  our  modern  socialism  into  extremely 
practical  form,  and  Richard  Waller  then  resident  at 
Groombridge  received  orders  to  arrest  him,  under 
the  alias  of  John  Mortimer,  Sir  John  Fastolf  heard  in 
London  that  things  were  not  going  on  at  Caiston  as 
the  eternal  fitness  of  things  directed  that  they  should. 
While  Sir  John  was  junketing  in  the  capital  the  ser- 
vants of  his  country  estate  were  similarly  employed  in 
Norfolk.  The  parson  at  Castlecombe,  who  it  seems 
was  acting  as  Steward  or  overseer  to  the  great  man, 
wrote  to  him  complaining  that  his  authority  was 
being  set  at  naught,  and  that  domestic  riot  was 
rampant  in  the  stately  family  mansion  where  all  ought 
to  have  been  order  and  domestic  peace.  A  melancholy 
story  was  unfolded  in  a  long  letter.  Sir  John's  wine 
was  being  drunk ;  ancillary  hands  had  been  laid  upon 
his  wardrobe ;  men-servants  had  been  seen  disporting 
themselves  in  the  absent  master's  best  clothes ;  or,  in 
a  mock  tournament  held  in  the  servants'  hall,  had 
donned  the  armour  which  had  borne  the  buffets  of 
Agincourt  and  Vermeuil  to  say  nothing  of  those  less 
honourable  shocks  which  had  been  inflicted,  before 
Orleans  and  elsewhere,  by  Joan  of  Arc.  This  was 
bad  enough,  but  worse  remained  behind.  And  the 
25 


386  MOATED  HOUSES 

rage  of  Sir  John  may  be  imagined  when,  as  a  climax 
to  all  these  minor  insubordinations,  the  fell  news 
reached  his  ears  that  somebody  had  been  poaching 
his  rabbits.  Most  of  the  country  gentlemen's  dinner 
parties  of  this  period  were  practically  composed  of 
rabbit  pies,  and  in  1450  landowners  looked  as  jealously 
after  their  rabbits  as  their  representatives  of  to-day 
look  after  pheasants'  eggs.  Confronted  with  this 
enormity,  Sir  John  Fastolf  took  his  pen  in  hand,  and 
after  no  doubt  a  painful  and  prolonged  labour  delivered 
himself  of  the  following  letter  in  characters  which 
look  like  spear-heads,  and  which  illegibly  disclosed 
(amongst  other  matters)  two  oaths  which  will  be  new 
to  contemporary  swearers,  but  which  were  extremely 
in  vogue  at  the  time  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War. 
Thus  wrote  the  Knight,  incoherent  under  the  Servant 
difficulty  of  1450,  and  smarting  from  the  attentions  of 
poachers  of  the  same  date  : — 

"  To  my  trusty  and  well  beloved  friend  Sir 
Thomas  Howe  parson  of  Castlecomb. 

"  Trusty  and  well  beloved  friend,  I  greet  you  well, 
and  I  pray  you  send  me  word  who  dare  to  be  so 
hardy  to  kick  against  you,  in  my  right,  and  say  to 
them  on  my  behalf,  that  they  shall  be  quiet,  as  far  as 
Law  and  reason  will,  and  if  they  will  not  obey  that, 
then  they  shall  be  quiet  by  Black  Beard  or  White 
Beard,  that  is  to  say  by  God  or  the  Devil.  .  .  . 

"Item.  I  hear  of  many  strange  reports  of  de- 
meaning the  governance  of  my  place  at  Caister  :  and 
other  places,  as  in  my  Chatell  approving,  in  my  wines, 
the  keeping  of  my  wardrobe  and  cloths,  the  Avail  of 


GROOMBRIDGE  387 

my  Conies  at   Hellesdon,  as  my  full  trust  is  in  you  to 
help  and  reform  it. 

"  LONDON  Wednesday  2jtk  May  1450 
28  Hen  vi" 

or   if   the    original    heading   be    preferred    in    all    its 
picturesque  obscurity  :— 

"  Wryt  at  London  XXVij  day  of  May 
XXViij  R.R.H.Vj" 

Is  not  the  grief  of  this  fifteenth-century  absentee 
landlord  touching?  Is  not  his  indignation  on  the 
servant  question  quite  up  to  date  ?  Like  Lord 
Byron,  he  swears  by  the  Post,  when  he  thinks  of 
poachers. 

Five  years  after,  while  his  friend  and  fellow-soldier 
Richard  Waller,  after  having  made  peace  with  the 
Yorkists,  was  carrying  out,  from  Groombridge,  the 
lucrative  and  responsible  duties  of  Receiver  of  the 
King's  Castle,  lands  and  Manors  in  Kent,  Surrey, 
Sussex,  and  Hampshire,  Sir  John  had  again  to  write 
another  letter,  and  as  this  was  the  date  of  the  first 
battle  of  St.  Alban's  on  an  appropriately  military 
matter.  But  it  was  not  the  battle  of  St.  Alban's  that 
Sir  John  had  to  write  about,  but  the  battle  of 
Vermeuil,  already  alluded  to.  This  last  piece  of 
correspondence  was  about  a  sum  of  six  thousand  six 
hundred  and  sixty-six  pounds,  thirteen  shillings  and 
fourpence,  due  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  for  his  capture 
of  the  Duke  of  Alenqon  in  that  celebrated  fight.  Of 
this  reward  Sir  John  seems  to  have  only  received  six 
hundred  and  sixty-six  pounds,  thirteen  and  fourpence 


388  MOATED  HOUSES 

as  his  share,  up  to  date.  This  left  two  thousand  six 
hundred  and  sixty-six  pounds,  thirteen  and  fourpence 
yet  to  be  tabled,  without  any  apparent  prospect  of 
that  formality  taking  place.  The  thirteen  and  four- 
pence  seems  to  me  a  characteristic  touch :  but  Sir 
John  Falstolf  was  very  wroth  about  it.  Four  years 
afterwards,  however,  death  closed  his  money  worries 
just  as  he  had  reached  the  age  of  eighty. 

The  lord  of  Groombridge  only  survived  his  friend 
and  commanding  officer  a  year.  The  successors  to 
the  estate  seem  to  have  realized  that  a  moat  was  not 
only  a  protective  agent  when  a  country  was  rent  by 
internecine  strife,  but  was  also  a  valuable  asset  of 
defence  in  times  of  political  storm  and  stress. 
Actuated  by  this  belief  they  religiously  kept  them- 
selves inside  it  for  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  years. 
In  plain  words  they  lived  like  sensible  people  on 
their  fine  and  picturesque  estate,  and  let  hotter  heads 
occupy  themselves  with  political  affairs.  This  record 
of  a  county  family's  reticence  brings  the  story  of  the 
house  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  and  finds 
its  representative  donning  the  Orange  scarf  of  the 
Parliament. 

Sir  Hardress  Waller  now  appears  upon  the 
scene,  martial,  like  his  ancestors,  and,  wearing 
across  his  steel  breastplate,  the  Parliamentary  badge. 
It  would  seem  that  he  ought  not  to  have  worn  it,  as 
he  had  been  knighted  by  Charles  the  First  at 
Nonsuch  on  the  6th  of  July  1629.  Political  views, 
however,  changed  as  quickly  in  the  days  of  the 
Stuarts,  as  they  do  in  the  present  year  of  Grace,  when 
in  a  practically  bankrupt  country,  everything  is  going 


GROOMBRIDGE  389 

to  be  remedied  in  a  moment  by  a  long  programme  of 
confiscation.  Sir  Hardress  Waller  meanwhile,  though 
he  was  destined  eventually  to  rat,  waited  for  events 
and  postponed  that  agreeable  feat  as  long  as  was 
politically  possible.  In  this  connection,  the  fact  that 
he  should  have  made  Ireland  the  scene  of  his  political 
and  military  activity  should  occasion  no  surprise. 
He  began  his  career  in  a  very  sensible  way,  by 
marrying  an  Irishwoman  (her  name  was  Elizabeth), 
and  settled  down  on  her  estate  of  Castletown,  County 
liimerick.  The  Irish  rebellion  of  1641  disturbed 
carefully  acquired  quiet,  and  Sir  Hardress,  having 
lost  his  property  through  the  too  insistent  attentions 
of  armed  bands  of  Irish  rebels,  remembered  that  his 
name  was  Waller,  and  took  sword  in  hand.  Under 
the  command  of  the  celebrated  Inchiquin,  he  rode  as 
a  Colonel  of  horse  against  the  rebels  of  Munster. 
Money  was  however  wanted  for  the  campaign,  or  for 
somebody,  and  money  was  not  a  factor  to  be  found 
often  in  King  Charles  the  First's  coffers.  The 
Civil  War  broke  out,  as  is  generally  known,  on 
22nd  August  1642.  On  the  first  of  December  of 
that  year  Sir  Hardress  Waller  in  the  company  of 
three  other  Colonels,  approached  the  King,  then 
holding  his  Court  at  Merton  College,  Oxford,  with 
a  petition  from  the  Protestants  of  Ireland.  They 
wanted  money.  But  the  moment  for  their  appeal 
was  ill-timed.  Charles  had  none  for  himself,  and 
with  some  dexterity  referred  the  ambassadors  to  that 
Parliament,  which  was  not  at  the  moment  sitting, 
and  with  which  he  was  at  the  moment  at  war. 
Nothing  consequently  came  of  the  deal.  But  it  is 


390  MOATED  HOUSES 

to  be  gravely  suspected   that   its  unfortunate   result, 
taken    in    connection    with     Sir     Hardress    Waller's 
personal    inspection   of   the  royal  and  empty  coffers, 
directly    brought    about     his    somewhat    precipitate 
change    of  front.      He    went    back    to    Ireland   from 
Oxford    without   any   money   in   his   pocket,   and   he 
had  no  sooner  got  there  than,  in  a  complete  forget- 
fulness  of  the  honours  which  had  been  conferred  on 
him  at  Nonsuch,  he  conducted  himself  in  such  a  way 
that  he  was  openly  accused  of  being  a  Roundhead. 
It   is  perhaps   natural   that  his   first  probation  while 
lying  under  this  suspicion,  should   have  occurred  to 
him  at  Cork.      He  was  governor  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Rebel  City  in  1644.     The  irresistible  tide  of 
victorious  battle  rolled  over  long    Marston   Moor  in 
the  July  of  this  year ;  and  Sir  Hardress,  inspired  by 
fortunate  event,  crossed  to  England,  and  openly  put 
on  the  winning  colours.      He  was  given  the  command 
of  a  regiment  of  foot  in  Cromwell's  model  army,  and 
served    under    Fairfax   till    the  war    ended.      In    his 
capacity  of  military  turncoat  he  saw  the   final  wave 
of  disaster  engulph  the  King's  army  at  Naseby  ;  and 
with  the  instinct  that  was  in  him  of  getting  off  on  the 
right  side  of  the  fence  he  devoted  himself  heart,  and 
soul,  and  banking  account  to  the  fortunes  of  Cromwell. 
In  this  great  service  his  duties  were  many ;  and  they 
were  well  paid.      In  the  celebrated  administration  of 
Colonel    Prydes    Purge,    he   played    so   prominent  a 
part,  that  when  members  of  Parliament  were  turned 
out  of  their    seats    by   soldiers    (an    historical    event 
which    may    possibly   repeat   itself  in    a   not  too  far 
distant  future),   Sir  Hardress  Waller  personally   laid 


GROOMBRIDGE  393 

his  venal  and  ejecting  hands  on  Prynne.  The  attach- 
ment of  his  signature,  written  in  a  fairly  legible  hand, 
to  the  death-warrant  of  Charles  the  First  was  the 
logical  sequence  to  a  political  agitation  conducted  on 
such  lines.  That  Sir  Hardress  took  a  prominent 
part  in  what  is  called  Cromwell's  reconquest  of 
Ireland,  is  also  a  fact  in  complete  keeping.  He 
served  in  that  monstrous  campaign,  in  which  under 
the  pretence  of  Piety,  Fanaticism  showed,  and  to  the 
full,  its  diabolical  force,  as  a  Major-General.  He 
commanded  at  the  Siege  of  Carlow  in  the  year  after 
Charles  the  First's  execution ;  and  two  sieges  of 
Limerick  subsequently  occupied  his  attention.  When 
the  struggle,  if  struggle  it  can  be  called  ended,  Sir 
Hardress  Waller  was  actively  employed  on  the  con- 
genial task  of  transplanting  the  Irish  to  Connaught. 
Strange  to  say,  though  he  had  served  Cromwell 
so  faithfully  following,  in  plain  words,  that  adventurer's 
fortunes,  through  thick  and  thin,  he  never  received 
any  preferment  from  him.  The  fact  is  that  this  lord 
of  Groombridge,  probably  from  having  changed  his 
political  views  too  suddenly,  could  never  quite  shake 
off  the  suspicion  of  being  a  double-dealer.  And  it  is 
probable  that  in  this  role,  and  before  his  open 
defection  to  the  cause  of  the  Parliament,  he  was  an 
active  agent  in  those  mysterious  negotiations  to 
flood  England  with  Irish  troops,  which  did  more 
than  anything  else  to  bring  Charles  the  First  to  the 
scaffold.  Cromwell  did  not  trust  this  zealous 
Parliamentarian.  Nor  did  General  Monk.  And  the 
final  proof  of  his  continual  double-dealing  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  that,  though  his  signature  can  still 


394  MOATED  HOUSES 

be  read  at  the  foot  of  Charles  the  First's  Death- 
Warrant,  this  regicide  escaped  with  his  life.  He 
died  a  prisoner  in  the  Castle  of  Jersey,  probably  six 
years  after  the  Restoration. 

The  character  and  the  doings  of  this  owner  of 
Groombridge  are  so  out  of  keeping  with  the  poetry 
of  the  place,  that  it  is  pleasant  to  turn  to  another 
representative  of  the  family,  who  though  never  a 
possessor  of  this  Moated  House,  often  visited  it,  and 
conferred  on  it  by  visits  an  added  distinction  in  the 
pauses  of  a  poetic  story.  This  happy  advent  came 
about  in  the  following  way,  and  here  Genealogy  must 
lend  us  her  aid.  Richard  Waller  the  original  owner 
of  Groombridge,  whose  fortunes  have  already  been 
traced,  had  two  sons  by  his  wife  whose  name  was 
Sylvia.  Their  respective  names  were  Richard  and 
John.  John  who  had  died  in  1517  had  (previously 
of  course  to  this)  become  the  father  of  another  John. 
And  this  second  John  had  the  honour  and  the  good 
luck  to  be  the  father  of  Edmund  Waller,  the  poet. 

Edmund  was  born  at  Coleshill  Manor  House  on 
3rd  March  1606,  so  that  he  narrowly  missed  being  a 
Gunpowder  Plot  child  and  the  added  honour  of  being 
born  in  the  year  which  saw  the  publication  of  The 
Advancement  of  Learning.  For  his  own  education 
he  went  to  Eton  and  King's  College,  Cambridge,  and 
determined  the  side  on  which  he  was  to  take  in  the 
Civil  War  by  a  marriage  which  made  him  related 
to  both  Hampden  and  Cromwell.  But  political 
sympathies  brought  about  by  marriage  are  often  as 
unreal  as  that  fabled  happiness  which  is  supposed 
always  to  follow  it,  and  Royalist  leanings  beat  fast 


GROOMBRIDGE  395 

under  the  buff  coat  of  the  scholar  of  Eton  and  King's. 
Poetic  movings  also  gave  this  parliamentarian  pause. 
And  a  commission  which  his  party  gave  him  to  act 
as  one  of  the  Commissioners  to  treat  with  Charles 
the  First  at  Oxford  very  nearly  resulted  in  his  finding 
his  neck  in  a  noose.  The  Kino-'s  Court  was  at 

o 

Merton  College  in  those  days  and  the  finest  women 
in  England  took  the  air  in  its  beautiful  garden.     The 
poet  that  was  in  Waller  responded  to  these  seductive 
environments,  and  he  very  soon  found  himself  a  party 
to   the  Plot.     Conspiracy,  however,  is  not  for  poets 
or  Irishmen.     And  though  Waller  in  the  inevitable 
moment  of  discovery  alleged  that  he  fell  into  this  one 
by  accident,  the  kind  of  accident  which  involved  the 
seizing  of  the  City  of  London  for  Charles  the  First, 
its  magazines,  the  Tower  and  the  appointment  of  the 
Earl  of  Bath,  who  was  a  prisoner  there,  as  commander 
for  the  King,  did  not  appeal  to  the  critical  appreciation 
of  the  Parliament.     The  facts  of  this  conspiracy,  which 
in  spite  of  his  protestations  was  called  by  the  name  of 
the  poet  are  naturally  of  an  extreme  simplicity.     Lady 
d'Aubigny  brought  a  Commission  of  Array  with  the 
Great  Seal  attached  from  Oxford  to  London.     Waller, 
who  lived  at  the  lower  end  of  Holborn  near  Halton 
House,  showed  it  to  Richard  Challoner  who  lived  at 
the  Holborn  end  of  Fetter  Lane.     Richard  Challoner 
showed     it     to     Nathaniel     Tompkins,      Nathaniel 
Tompkins    showed    it   by  accident  to  his  clerk  who 
happened    to    be    looking   over    his   shoulder.     The 
clerk  informed  the  authorities  of  what  he  had  seen. 
The   result  was  that  Challoner  and  Tompkins  were 
hung  opposite  their  own  front  doors  two  days  after 


396  MOATED  HOUSES 

they  had  been  tried — and  Waller  the  poet  was  set  the 
pleasant  task  of  saving  his  own  neck  if  he  wanted  to 
write  any  more  poetry.  His  preliminary  methods  do 
not  commend  themselves  to  the  palate,  for  though  he 
pretended  to  be  mad,  his  madness  had  method  in  it, 
and  took  the  form  of  offering  ;£  10,000  for  his  own 
life,  and  a  perfectly  false  accusation  endangering  the 
lives  of  about  seven  other  perfectly  innocent  people. 
A  more  savoury  effort  took  the  form  of  an  extremely 
able  speech  in  the  House,  of  Commons  which  with  the 
timely  intervention  of  Cromwell  got  him  out  of  the 
scrape  on  the  conditions  of  the  tabling  of  the  ,£10,000 
already  referred  to  and  an  immediately  going  abroad. 
"  Not  here  oh  Apollo,  however,  are  haunts  fit  for 
thee,"  and  it  is  a  pleasing  change  to  see  the  poet, 
freed  from  the  mud  of  that  intrigue  into  which  he 
should  never  have  strayed,  living  in  France  in  the 
company  of  John  Evelyn,  and  Thomas  Hobbes  ; 
returning  finally  at  the  Restoration  ;  becoming  a 
favourite  at  the  Court  of  Charles  and  James  the 
Second  in  spite  of  temperate  habits  and  an  unalterable 
determination  to  drink  nothing  but  water.  It  is  more 
pleasant  still  to  picture  this  man  of  middle  height, 
dark  complexion,  and  prominent  eyes  paying  one  of 
those  periodical  visits  to  the  Groombridge  Moated 
Hall,  which  for  the  second  time  in  its  history  linked 
it  to  the  society  of  the  Muses.  On  its  well-trimmed 
lawns,  on  the  pleasant  uplands  of  the  park,  Waller 
can  be  seen  wandering ;  or  gazing  pensively  into  the 
moat  and  seeing  in  its  still  waters  the  reflection  of  that 
coy  yet  radiant  village  beauty  who  inspired  him  with 
his  most  finished  and  melodious  verse.  The  rose 


GROOMBRIDGE  397 

of  his  poem's  allegory  bloomed  in  the  old-world 
garden  close  at  hand.  The  surroundings  were  tuned 
for  the  rhapsodies  of  a  courtly  and  not  too  passionate 
lover.  They  resulted  in  those  verses  which  should 
be  in  the  memory  of  all  who  care  for  English  poetry, 
and  which  may  fitly  close  this  memorial  of  Groom- 
bridge  with  fragrance  and  with  music. 

"  Go  lovely  Rose 
Tell  her  that  wastes  her  time  and  me 

That  now  she  knows 
When  I  resemble  her  to  thee 
How  sweet  and  fair  she  seems  to  be. 

Tell  her  that's  young 
And  shuns  to  have  her  graces  spied, 

That  had'st  thou  sprung 
In  deserts,  where  no  men  abide, 
Thou  must  have  uncommended  died. 

Small  is  the  worth 
Of  Beauty  from  the  light  retired. 

Bid  her  come  forth, 
Suffer  herself  to  be  desired, 
And  not  blush  so  to  be  admired. 

Then  die  !  that  she 
The  common  fate  of  all  things  rare 

May  read  in  thee  ; 
How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share 
That  are  so  wondrous  sweet  and  fair." 


INDEX 


Alasco,  Dr.,  145 
Allingham  Castle,  359 
Aretino,  Pietro,  70 
Artevelde,  James  van,  8 
d'Aubigny,  Lady,  395 
Aydon  Castle,  43 

Bacon,  Lord,  179 

Lord  Chancellor,  139 
Baddesley  Clinton,  193-214 
Bath,  Earl  of,  395 
Bedingfield,  Sir  Henry  (i),  27,  34- 
36,  39-40 

(ii),  40-41 
Bellamont,  Countess  of,  301 

ist  Earl  of,  293-301 

2nd  Earl  of,  285 
Bertie,  Catharine,  147 

Richard,  147 
Birtsmorton,  284-303 
Biseges,  the  de,  194 
Bisham  Abbey,  62-74  ;   the  ghost 

of,  62-64 

Blickling  Hall,  353 
Blythe  Hall,  206 
Bohun,  Humphrey  de,  6 
Bokenhams,  the,  155 
Boleyn,  Anne,  350-54,  357~?6 

Sir  Thomas,  353,  364 
Bourchier,  George,  342 
Bower,  Wm.,  13 
Boxstede,  Nicholas,  253 
Brackenburys,  the,  231-32 
Braxteijn,  Wm.,  82 
Brome,  Constance,  198 
Broughton  Castle,  328-47 


Brudenell,  Robert,  253 
Buckstede,  John,  253 
Bulstrode,  19 
Burghley,  Lord,  13 
letters    from     Lady     Hoby     to, 

7i 
Burleigh,  Lord,  304 

Caldwell,  Admiral,  301 

Camden,  Wm.,  at  Bisham,  73  ;  at 
Baddesley  Clinton,  193,  205-6 

Canonbury,  315 

Canterbury,     Parker,    Archbishop 
of,  135-36 

Carp  in  Plumpton  Moat,  135 

Carr,  Thomas,  171 

Castlecombe,  385 

Caux,  John,  255-56 

Challoner,  Richard,  395 

Charles  I.,  connection  with  Wood- 
croft,  258,  260-64 
ii.,    at     Durants     Arbour,     19  ; 
splendour  and  death  of,  94-98  ; 
Rye  House  Plot,  268-76 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  at  Crow's  Hall, 
126-28 

Cleveland,  Duchess  of,  97 

Clifford,  Lord,  56 

Clintons,  the  de,  194 

Clopton  family,  the,  75-76 
Sir  Walter  de,  81-82,  85-87 

Colehill,  194 

Collet,  John,  118-19 

Coloony,  Lord,  292-93 

Compton  Beauchamp,  138-46 
Sir  Wm.,  311-12 


399 


400 


MOATED  HOUSES 


Compton,      Lord,     see     Earl     of 
Northampton 

Winyates,  129,  304-27 
Conway,  Sir  Hugh,  291 
Cooke,  Sir  Anthony,  66 
Coote,  Lady  Judith,  285 

Richard,  see  Coloony 
Coursing  at  Compton  Beauchamp, 

143-44 

Crow's  Hall,  118-27 
Culpepper,  Sir  John,  253 

Dale,  Richard,  109 
Dethick,  Sir  Wm.,  65 
Drawbridges,  49-50,  180-81 
Due,  Violet  le,  239-40 
Dugdale,  Sir  Wm.,  193,  206,  209- 

10 
Durants  Arbour,  1-21 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  at  Oxburgh,  33- 

36  ;  at  Moreton  Hall,  105 
Erasmus,  118 
Essex,  Lord,  270,  280 
Evelyn,  John,  93-100 
D'Ewes,  Sir  Simon,  76,  79-81 

Fastolf,  Sir  John,  382,  385,  387- 

88 

Fenne,  Robert,  253 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  288 
Ferrers,  Sir  Edward,  198 

Henry,  193,  201-6,  209-10 
Feudal  dues,  255 
Fiennes,  John,  340-42,  344-45 

Nathaniel,  333,  340-44 

Wm.,  332-40 
Fitzwilliam,  Wm.,  254 
Flamank,  John,  291 

Gawdy,  Sir  Chas.  Bassingbourne, 

123-24 

Gedding  Hall,  155-62 
Gent,   Sir  Thomas,    168-72,    175- 

76 


Gent,  Wm.,  164,  167-68 
Golden  Pippin,  Maccall's,  136 
Great  Tangley,  89-100 
Great  Thurlow,  171 
Groombridge,  377-97 
Gunpowder       Plot      episode       at 
Ightham,  243-48 

H addon  Hall,  125 
Hampden,  John,  270,  280 
Helmingham  Hall,  180-92 
Henley,  Lady  Bridges,  189 
Henlip  Hall,  309 

Henry    vil.    at   Oxburgh,    29-30 ; 
death  of,  118 

Vlll.  and  Anne  Boleyn,  350-71 
Heraldry  at  Dugdale,  206-10;  at 

Birtsmorton,  284 
Hermore,  Wm.,  253 
Hessitis,  Richard  de,  7 
Hever  Castle,  348-76 
Heydon,  Sir  John,  253 
Heyron,  John  and  Emma,  7-8 
Hoby,  Sir  Edward,  72-74 

Lady,  62-66,  69,  71-72 

Sir  Philip,  65,  69-71 

Sir  Thomas,  63,  70-71 
Hotham,  Sir  James,  54 
Howe,  Sir  Thomas,  385-86 
Howitt,  Mr.,  304,  306 
Hudson,  Dr.  Michael,  258,  261-65 
Huskisson,  Wm.,  302-3 
Hussey,  Lord,  56 

Ightham  Moat,  129,  231-50 
Ingleby,  Sir  Wm.,  59 

Jeffreys,  Judge,  2-7,  14-21 

Sir  George,  280-81 
Jermys,  Mr.,  218 
Jesuits,  the,  101,  175 
John,  King,  at  Great  Tangley,  90 
Jones,  Sir  Geo.  and  Lady,  20 
Justice,  administration  of,  82,  85- 
87 


INDEX 


401 


Keiling,  280 

Keriiltvorth,  145,  217,  225 
Kentwell  Hall,  75-88 
Keynton,  342 

Kidd,  Captain,  294-96,  299-301 
King's  Arms,  279-80 
Kingsmill,  Sir  Wm.,  332 
Knights  Templars  at  Bisham,  69 

Leicester,  Earl  of,  225-26 

Lewes,  133-34 

Lidcote  Hall  (Kenihuorth\  225 

Littlecote  Hall,  145 

Livingstone,  Robert,  295 

London,  Spencer,    Bishop  of,  318, 

322,  325-26 

Lundy  Island,  Fiennes  at,  339 
Luther,  Martin,  1 19 

Macado,  Roger,  287 
Mariana  (Tennyson),  155-62 
Markenfield  Hall,  43-61 

Sir  Ninian,  48,  55-56 

Sir  Thomas  (i),  53-54 

Sir  Thomas  (ii),  54 

Sir  Thomas  (iii),  54-55 

Sir  Thomas  (iv),  56,  59 

Sir  Thomas  (v),  59-61 
Mary  Stuart,  bed  coverlet  worked 

by,  33 

Mascall,  Leonard,  135-37 
Maynard,  Wm.  Lord,  15-16 
Mazarin,  Duchess  of,  97 
Melford,  168 
Merton  College,  389,  395 
Metley,  Nicholas,  194,  197 
Moigne,   Robt.   le   Fitzwilliam   le, 
164. 

Joan  le,  164 

Moore,  Sir  Thomas,  119 
Moreton  Hall,  101-17 

Margaret,  109-10,  113-14,  117 

Wm.,  106,  109 
Moyn's  Park,  163-79 
Mumblazen,  Master,  228-30 
26 


Names,  incorrect  spelling  of,  109- 

10 
Nanfan,  Bridges,  292 

Catharine,  292 

John, 286,  291-92 

Richard,  287-88,  291 
Nanphant,  see  Nanfan 
North,  Rising  of  the,  60 
Northampton,  ist  Earl  of,  315 

2nd  Earl  of,  318,  321-22 
Northington,  Earl  of,  189 
Norton,  John,  59 

Orleans,  Charles,  Duke  of,  377,  379 
Oubliettes,     232-34,    238-40,    243, 

310 

Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  74 
Oxburgh  Hall,  22-42 

Palliser,  Wm.,  253 

Parham,  147,  150-54 

Parker,  Thomas,  see  Archbishop  of 

Canterbury 

Parma,  Duke  of,  148-53 
Penshurst,  125 
Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  56,  59 
Plumpton  Place,  128-35 
Portsmouth,  Duchess  of,  19,  97 
Prestons,  the  de,  252 
Pride,  Colonel  ("Pride's  Purge"), 

80,  343,  390 
Prynne,  393 
Pulter,  Francis,  254 
Pytts,  Sir  Edmund,  301 

Queenborough,  72,  74 
Queen's  College,  22 
Querouaille,  Louise  de,  19 

Radyngton,  Sir  Baldwin  de,  8,  i  i-i  2 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  75 

Richards,  Miss  Anne,  139-40,  143- 

44,  146 
Ring,  discovery  of,  at  Broughton, 

328 


402 


MOATED  HOUSES 


Robsart,  Amy,  225-30 

Sir  Hugh,  226,  228 
Rochford  Hall,  353 

Lady,  369 

"Rowley,"  see  Charles  II 
Rumbold,  268,  273-76,  282 
Rumsey,  Colonel,  275-76 
Rush  murders,  the,  217-25 
Russell,  Lord,  270,  280 

Lord  John,  71 
Rye  House,  the,  266-83 
Rye  House  Plot,  268-81 

Say  and  Sele,  Viscount,  see  Fiennes 

St.  Albans,  scandal  of  the  Mona- 
stery of,  85-86 

Salisbury,  Montacute,  Earl  of,  66 

Savage,  Dr.,  287 

Selby,  Dorothy,  243-46 

Shakespeares,  the,  at  Baddesley 
Clinton,  193 

Shepherd,  279-80 

Shrewsbury,  Elizabeth,  33 

Sidney,  Algernon,  270,  280 

Somerset,  trial  of  Earl  and 
Countess  of,  74 

Speldhurst,  379-80 

Spofforth  Castle,  47 

Sports  and  Pursuits  of  the  English, 

*43 
Stables,    position    of,     in    moated 

houses,  47-49 
Stamford,  265 
Stanfield  Hall,  217-30 
Stringer,  Sir  Thomas,  16 

Wm.,  16 

"  Subtlety,  Old,"  see  John  Fiennes 
Suffolk,  Charles  Brandon,  Duke  of, 

147 
Suffolk  Garland,  The,  147 


Talbot,  the  Hon.  Captain  George, 

190-91 

Tangley,  see  Great  Tangley 
Tennyson  quoted,  134,  155 
Tollemaches,  the  curse  of  the,  188- 
89 

the  Hon.  Capt.  John,  189,  191 

Lionel  Robert,  189-92 

Hon.  Wm.,  191 
Tompkins,  Nathaniel,  395 
Towton,  relic  of  battle  of,  305 
Trapps,  Robert,  254 
Travelling    in    Elizabethan   times, 

316-17 
Tressillian,  Edmund,  145,  226-28 

Wakeley,  Alderman,  161 

Walcot,  Colonel,  275-80 

Waller,  Edmund,  377-78,  394-96 
Sir  Hardress,  388-90,  393 
Richard,  378-82,  385,  387,  394 

Walsingham,  Sir  Francis,  72,  172, 

175 

Ware,  Bed  of,  267 
Way  land  Smith,  145 
White,  Henry,  210 
White  Horse  Hill,  145 
Willoughby,  Sir  H.,  79 
Willoughby  of  Eresby,  Lord,  148- 

54 
Wilton,  Earl  of,  Sports  and  Pursuits 

of  the  English,  143 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  311-12 
Woodcroft,  251-65 
Wotton,  94 
Wroth,  Wm.,  12 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  359-60,  371- 

73 

Yeomans,  Robert,  342 


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LETTER. 
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OF  SCOTTISH  VERSE. 

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Edition. 

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ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

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FROM  LONGFELLOW. 


GENERAL  LITERATURE 


21 


THB  LITTLB  TL,mixi—  continued. 


™  MINOR  POEMS  OF 


Molr  CD.  M.).    MANSIE  WAUCH. 

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LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD. 

Smith  (Horace  and  James).  REJECTED 
ADDRESSES. 

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JOURNEY. 

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POEMS  OF  ALFRED,  LORD  TENNY- 
SON. 

IN  MEMORIAM. 

THE  PRINCESS. 


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Three  Volumes. 

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ANGLER. 


THB      COMPLEAT 


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FICTION 


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Goudge,  M.A.    Second  Ed.    Demy  8vo.    6s. 
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Cuthell. 
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Clark  Russell.    Fourth  Edition. 
SYD  BKLTOK  :   Or,  the  B»y  who  would  not 

go  to  Sea.     By  G.  Manville  Fenn      Second 

Edition. 
THK  RED   GRANGK.    By  Mr*.   Molesworth. 

Second  Edition, 


A  GIRL  OF  THK  PBOPIJC. 
Fourth  Edition. 


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THERB  WAS  one*  A  PRINCX.     By  Mrs.  M.  E. 
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WKBK  ARNOLD  COMES  HOME.   By  Mrs.  M.  K. 
Mann. 


FICTION 

The  Novels  of  Alexandra  Dumas. 

Medium  8ve>.    Price  6d.     Double  Volumes,  i 


29 


ACT* 

THE  ADVKNTUKKS  or  CAPTAIK  PAMFKILB. 

AMAURY. 

THE  BIRD  OF  FAT*. 

THK  BLACK  Tour. 

THE  CASTLE  OF  EPKTXX* 

CATHERINB  BLUM 

CECTLH, 

THE  CHATELET. 

THB   CHEVALIER    D'HARMKNTAL.     (Double 

volume.) 

CHICOT  THK  JESTER. 
THB  COMTK  OB  MONTGOMERY 
CONSCIENCE. 
THE  CONVICT'S  Sow. 
THE  CORSICAN    BROTHERS;    and  OTHO  THK 

ARCHER. 

CROP-EARED  JACQUOT. 
DOM  GORENFLOT, 
THE  FATAL  COMBAT. 
THB  FENCING  MASTER 
FERNANDE. 
GABRIEL  LAMRCKT 
GEORGES. 

THE  GREAT  MASSACR* 
HENRI  DH  NAVAXRK. 
HBL&NB  DB  CHAVBUNT 


THB  Hoxoscorm. 

LOUISE  DB  LA  VALLIERB.    (Double  volume.) 

THB   MAM    IN   THB   IKON   MASK.    (Double 
volume.) 

MA!  IRE  ADAM. 

THK  MOUTH  or  HELU 

NANON.    (Double  volume.) 


PAULINE  ;  PASCAL  BRUNO  ;  and  BONTKKO*. 

PERK  LA  RUINB. 

THB  PRINCB  OP  THIEVES. 

THE  REMINISCENCES  OF  ANTONY. 

ROBIN  HOOD. 

SAMUEL  GBLB. 

THE  SNOWBALL  AMD  THB  SOLTANBTTA. 

SYLVANDIRK. 

THE  TAKING  OF  CALAIS. 

TALES  OF  THB  SUPERNATURAL. 

TALES  OF  STRANGE  AOVBNTTTM 

TALES  OF  TERROR. 

THE  THREE  MUSKETEERS.  (Double  volume.) 

THE  TRAGEDY  OF  NANTES. 

TWENTY   YEARS  AFTER.    (Double  volume.) 

THE  WILD-DUCK  SHOOTS*. 

THE  WOLF-LBADEB. 


Metliuen's  Sixpenny  Book* 

Medium  &vt. 


AlbanesI    (E.   Maria)     LOVE    AND 

LOUISA. 

I  KNOW  A  MAIDEN. 
Anstey  (F.).    A  BAYARD  OF   BENGAL. 
Austen  (J.).     PRIDE  AND  PREJUDICE. 
Bagot  (Richard).  A  ROMAN  MYSTERY. 
CASTING  OF  NETS. 
DONNA   DIANA. 

Salfour   (Andrew).     BY    STROKE   OF 
SWORD. 


Baring-Gould  (S-).    FURZK  BLOOM. 

CHEAP  JACK  ZITA. 

KITTY  ALONE. 

URITH. 

THE  BROOM  SQUIRE. 

IN  i THE  ROAR  OF  THE  SEA. 

\T  O  V  \T  T 

A  BOOK  OF  FAIRY  TALES.    Illustrated. 

LITTLE  TU'PENNY. 

WINEFRED. 

THE  FROBISHERS. 

THE  QUEEN  OF  LOVR 


3P 


METHUEN  AND  COMPANY  LIMITED 


ARMINELL. 

BLADYS  OF   THK  STKWPONEY. 

Barr  (Robert).    JENNIE  BAXTER. 
IN  THE  MIDST  OF  ALARMS. 
THE  COUNTESS   TEKLA. 
THE  MUTABLE  MANY. 

Benson  (E.  P.).    DODO. 
THE  VINTAGE. 

Bronte  (Charlotte).    SHIRLEY. 

Srownell   (C.   L.).      THK    HEART    OF 
JAPAN. 

Burton  (J.  Bloundelle).    ACROSS    THE 
SALT  SEAS. 

Caffyn   (Mrs.).    ANNE  MAULEVERER. 

Capes    (Bernard).      THE    LAKE    OF 

WINE. 

Clifford   (Mrs.  W.    K.).     A  FLASH  OF 

SUMMER. 
MRS.   KEITH'S  CRIME. 

Corbett    (Julian).     A     BUSINESS    IN 
GREAT  WATERS. 

Croker  (Mrs.  B.  M.).    ANGEL. 
A  STATE  SECRET. 
PEGGY  OF  THE  BARTONS. 
JOHANNA. 

Dante    (Alighlerl).      THK    DIVINE 
COMEDY  (Gary). 

Doyle  (A.  Conan).    ROUND  THK  RED 
LAMP. 

Duncan  (Sara  Jeannette).    A  VOYAGK 

OF  CONSOLATION. 
THOSE  DELIGHTFUL  AMERICANS. 

Eliot    (George).    THE  MILL  ON  THK 
FLOSS. 

Pindlater    (Jane    H.).     THK    GREKN 
GRAVES  OF   BALGOWRIE. 

Gallon  (Tom).    RICKERBY'S  FOLLY. 

Gaskell  (Mrs.).    CRANFORD. 
MARY  BARTON. 
NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 

Gerard   (Dorothea).      HOLY    MATRI- 
MONY. 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  LONDON. 
MADE  OF  MONEY. 

Gisslng(G.).  THE  TOWN  TRAVKLLKR 
THE  CROWN  OF  LIFE. 

Glanvllle    (Ernest).      THE    INCA'S 
TREASURE. 

THE  KLOOF  BRIDK. 


Glelg  (Charles).    BUNTER-S  CRUISE. 

Grimm     (The    Brothers).       GRIMM'S 
FAIRY  TALES. 

Hope  (Anthony).    A  MAN  OF  MARK, 

A  CHANGE  OF  AIR. 

THE   CHRONICLKS   OF  COUNT 

ANTONIO. 
PHROSO. 
THE  DOLLY  DIALOGUES. 

Hornung  (B.  W.k     DEAD  MEN  TELL 
NO  TALES. 

Ingraham  tf.  H.).    THK  THRONE  OF 
DAVID. 

Le   Queux   (W.).     THK   HUNCHBACK 
OF  WESTMINSTER. 

Levett-Yeats  (S.  K.).    THK  TRAITOR'S 

WAY. 
ORRAIN. 

Llnton   (E.   Lynn).     THE  TRUE   HIS- 
TORY  OF  JOSHUA  DAVIDSON. 

Lyall  (Edna).    DERRICK  VAUGHAN. 

Malet  (Lucas).    THE  CARISSIMA. 
A  COUNSEL  OF  PERFECTION. 

Mann    (Mrs.    M.    E.I.      MRS.    PETER 

HOWARD. 
A  LOST  ESTATE. 
THE  CEDAR  STAR. 
ONE  ANOTHER'S  BURDENS. 
THE  PATTEN  EXPERIMENT. 
A  WINTER'S  TALE. 

Marchmont   (A.  W.).     MISER   HOAD- 

LEY'S  SECRET. 
A  MOMENT'S  ERROR. 

Marryat  (Captain).    PETER  SIMPLE 
JACOB  FAITHFUL. 

March  (Richard).  A  METAMORPHOSIS. 
THE  TWICKENHAM  PKERAGK. 
THE  GODDESS. 
THE  JOSS. 

Mason  (A.  H.  W.).    CLEMENTINA, 

Mathers  (Helen).    HONEY. 
GRIFF  OF  GRIFFITHSCOURT 
SAM'S  SWEETHEART. 
THE  FERRYMAN. 
Meade  (Mrs.  L.  T.X    DRIFT. 
Miller  (Esther).  ,  LIVING  LIES. 

Mitford  (Bertram).  THK  SIGN  OF  T1TK 
SPIDER. 

Montresor  (F.  P.).    THE  ALIEN 


FICTION 


Morrison   (Arthur).     THB    HOLB   IN 
THE  WALL. 

Nesbit  (E.).    THB  RED  HOUS* 

Norrls  (W.  E.).    HIS  GRACE. 
GILES  INGILBY. 
THE  CREDIT  OF  THE  COUNTY. 
LORD  LEONARD  THB  LUCKLESS, 
MATTHEW  AUSTEN. 
CLARISSA  FURIOSA. 

Oliphant  (Mrs.).    THE  LADY'S  WALK. 
SIR  ROBERT'S  FORTUNE. 
THE  PRODIGALS. 
THE  TWO  MARYS. 

Oppenheim  (E.  P.).    MASTER  OF  MEN. 

Parker  (Gilbert).    THE  POMP  OF  THE 

LAVILETTES. 

WHEN  VALMOND  CAME  TO  PONTIAC. 
THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  SWORD. 

Pemberton   (Max).    THE   FOOTSTEPS 

OF  A  THRONE. 
I  CROWN  THEE  KING. 

Phillpotts  (Eden).    THE  HUMAN  BOY. 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  MIST. 
THE  POACHER'S  WIFE. 
THE  RIVER. 


Qw 


(A.    T.    Qulller    Couch). 
KITE  WOLF. 


THE 


Ridge  (W.Pett).  A  SON  OF  THE  STATE. 

LOST  PROPERTY. 

GEORGE  and  THE  GENERAL. 


ERB. 

Russell  (W.  Clark).    ABANDONED 
A  MARRIAGE  AT  SEA. 
MY  DANISH  SWEETHEART. 
HIS  ISLAND  PRINCESS. 

Sergeant  (Adeline).    THE  MASTER  OT 

BEECHWOOD. 
BALBARA'S  MONEY. 
THE  YELLOW  DIAMOND. 
THE  LOVE  THAT  OVERCAME. 

Sidgwiek   (Mrs.    Alfred).    THB    KINS 
MAN. 

Surtees  (R.  S.).  HANDLEY  CROSS. 
MR.  SPONGE'S  SPORTING  TOUR. 
ASK  MAMMA. 

Watford  (Mrs.  L.  B.).    MR.  SMITa 

COUSINS. 

THE  BABY'S  GRANDMOTHER. 

TROUBLESOME  DAUGHTERS. 

Wallace  (General  Lew).    BEN-HUJt 
THE  FAIR  GOD. 

Watson  (H.  B.jMarrlott).    THB  ADVEN- 
TURERS. 

CAPTAIN  FORTUNE. 

Weekes  (A.  B.).    PRISONERS  OF  WAR. 

Wells  (H.  G.).    THE  SEA  LADY. 

White  (Percy).    A  PASSIONATE  PIL 
GRIM. 


PRINTED  BY 

WILLIAM  CLOWES  AND  SONS,  LIMITED, 
LONDON  AND   BECCLES. 


Printed  by 

MORRISON  &  GIBB  LIMITED 
Edinburgh 


A     000106340     3 


I&JC 


This  label  must  not  be  removed. from  this  book,  nor  the 
figures  thereon  altered. 


For  use  when  issued 
as  an  extra. 


